16 July, 2018

by Updated on 16 July, 2018 81 comments

Best Bootable USB Creation Tools [Update 2020]

Making of bootable pen drive is easy. You can install a new operating system using the bootable USB. The software listed here takes the ISO image file and write it to the USB drive in a way that your PC can boot from the USB drive.
The USB drive is Easy to create, erase and reuse. Can install multiple OS on same USB at a time. Faster booting and installation speed. Portable and easy to handle.

[Please Read: How To Make A USB Drive Bootable To Install Windows 10 On BIOS & UEFI Motherboards]


1. Rufus

Rufus is simple and easy to use. It automatically detects your USB drive. The bootable USB drive can be created for newer hardware supporting UEFI or for legacy BIOS. You only have to select proper options from the list. Rufus is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Rufus Best Bootable USb Creator Windows 10 and Linux
💧 Download Rufus


2. Ventoy

This is real competition to Rufus. Yes. It takes less than 10 seconds to create a bootable USB drive from ISO. The size of the ISO does not matter at all. That is because, Ventoy do not extract the ISO while making the USB bootable. You have to just copy and paste the ISO as it is on the USB drive. It works differently than all other bootable USB creators.
Ventoy Bootable USB creator

First connect your USB drive to computer. The Ventoy will detect the drive. Now click on installation button. This will format the USB drive and all data will be wiped. It does not ask you to choose the ISO file because, you have to copy the ISO to USB manually. Just copy the ISO as it is.
You can copy multiple ISO files on the drive. And Ventoy allow you to install multiple operating systems. 
Very fast, very easy. The USB drive can be used as general storage medium even though it is bootable and this does not affect the bootable feature.
💧 Download Ventoy


3. RMPrepUSB

It's all-in-one tool. Features come with the cluttered interface. RMPrepUBS is useful for creating multi boot USB drive.  It can create multiple bootable partitions on single USB drive. Multiple ISO of the different OS or save user files along with the side of the bootable USB.

How to make Bootable USB flash drive from an ISO File. 12 best tools / software to create bootable USB flash drive

The special feature of RMPrepUSB is you can create a partition in USB drive just like you do on your hard disk making it more useful for saving files plus using the same drive as a separate folder for storing files.
  • This keeps your files separate from the operating system files
💧 Download RMPrepUSB



4. Universal USB Installer

best-bootable-USB-creation-tool

Specialized tool for creating bootable live Linux OS. Predefined list of most of the Linux distributions available. You can create a live antivirus rescue disk using Universal USB installer. 

The most important use of the Universal USB Installer is, for making Windows 7 ISO bootable. Even though, most other installers fail to support Windows 7, this is best in making Windows 7 ISO bootable from USB.
💧 Download Universal USB Installer



4. YUMI

Yumi, short for Your Universal Multiboot Installer. YUMI allows you to prepare the bootable USB drive multiple operating systems in one USB drive without formatting it.

Your-Universal-Multiboot-Installer
You can download the ISO of your favorite OS. YUMI has a large collection of free OS based on Linux and other Free OS projects. Just select what you want and YUMI will give you the direct download link for it.
The interface is quite easy to use and useful.
💧 Download YUMI



5. UNetbootin

How to install Windows from bootable USB

Create a bootable USB for any Linux distribution. If you are not using Windows as your host operating system, then UNetbootin is an option to go for. UNetbootin is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. 
💧 Download UNetbootin



6. Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi)

Bootable USB for Linux

LiLi is one more software used to make bootable USB. The special feature called built-in Vitalization allows users to run the installed Linux operating system without restarting the Windows which are an exclusive feature of LiLi.

If you are concerned only about Linux you must go for this.
💧Download LiLi Creator



7. WinSetUp From USB

How to make Bootable USB flash drive from an ISO File. 12 best tools / software to create bootable USB flash drive

This is also a tool for those who want to install multiple operating systems on one USB device.
  • WinSetup From USB let you install Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows 7, Windows 10, any Linux distribution.
  • When you prepare the USB drive using ‘WinSetup From USB’ you will be presented with the list of operating systems installed on the thumb drive and select the preferred operating system to boot from.
  • Though the interface is simple, non-expert users may find it difficult to use.
💧Download WinSetUp From USB



8. XBoot

This is more than just a bootable USB maker. You can create a rescue CD or a disk having multiple operating systems or tools like antivirus rescue CD.

It combines multiple tools in ISO image making it more useful than just a USB creating tool. XBoot can create ISO image from files and then write these files to the USB drive for booting or installation.

💧 Download XBoot here



9. Windows Bootable Image Creator

This is a straightforward and ultra-small tool that accomplishes its job as you expect. It has a super-simple interface and minimum buttons to avoid confusion of new users. This is a tool from AskVG.

There are only basic buttons and only one task to do. Just create a bootable USB drive to install or try new operating systems. I wonder how it is so small and light. It is just 160 KB in size.
💧 Download Windows Bootable Image Creator



10. Other Tools

➤  Novicorp WinToFlash is also a tool that will help you to recover deleted bootloader apart from creating a bootable flash drive.
➤  Windows official USB creation tool is an official tool to create a bootable USB drive to install downloaded Windows 7 and Windows 8 ISO images without burning it to traditional discs.
FlashBoot is a bit tool having around 24 MB in download size. It has more options than any other tool but is actually a paid tool, but anyone can use it for free.
The Etcher is an excellent tool for macOS users


Result:

⏩ 'Rufus' is the best but the new Ventoy is completely different and fast.
⏩ 'LiLi' is the best choice for Linux specialists.
⏩ 'WinSetup From USB' is for installing multiple OS in one USB drive.
⏩ 'RMPrep USB' is for making the partition in USB drive along with Windows.
⏩ If you want to clone a complete partition with OS 'WinUSB Maker' is the best choice.

Which tool do you think is the best? Do you have any other good tool to list?
About The Author
Passionate Technology Blogger. Not a profession. Find only real life useful and simplified Tech articles, How-To's on TopTrix.

81 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Replies
    1. Hirens 2018 New Generation is Back All In One Boot Disk!
      this is my open source project 2018 check this guys >>

      IT Tools Pack Solution Rescue Edition

      (Indonesian language) - Include Acronis 2018 + Norton Ghost + Partition Wizard & Other Tools

      Tx

      Delete
  3. I will not take advice from articles that don't clearly publish the date of the article written, The info is usually old and useless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, thanks for the reply. You are correct. I should display the date of article. But dont want to hide the date of publication. The blogger date has a problem with SEO which create multiple and duplicate description tag. that is the reason to disable the date. But still the I will try to find a different way.

      Delete
    2. I'm trying to install KolibriOS, the world's lightest and fastest OS. But I don't understand the technical stuff on their forum. I'd appreciate if you could make an article with a runthrough of what needs to be done for USB booting.

      Delete
    3. Hi, I will try to help you for sure. I have downloaded the OS and trying to install it using various USB booting software listed above. as soon as I succeed i will let you know.

      Delete
    4. Well? Any progress on KolibriOS?

      Delete
    5. Hi. I tried to install all the tools listed above. But the problem is that, as per the forums of the developer of KolibriOS, It is not a Linux OS at all and a completely different built so the all these tools will be of no any use. But as per the same forum the procedure is too simple.
      You just have to extract the downloaded archive and copy and paste all the files to a formatted usb drive. This will surely make your drive boot to KolibriOS.

      Delete
    6. Copied the operating system onto a formatted pendrive, didn't work.
      Set Master Boot Record on a formatted pendrive and tried again, didn't work.
      Downloaded the ISO version of the OS called "svn2978-iso". Used YUMI, selected the ISO file and it booted in 3 seconds.

      Thanks for helping.

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Used Rufus to create bootable Xp USB and it worked like charm!!!
    Thanks for nice article

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are welcome. Rufus is really a great software that can be used by anyone, newbie as well as advanced user to create a bootable usb drive.

      Delete
  6. Hi.
    There are also multiboot programs that allows you to have several bootable isos at once and choose which one to boot from.
    * Yumi, very good.
    * Xboot, I think Yumi works better but this one allows you to emulate the booting process from Windows.

    Anyway, sometimes other tools work better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Yumi is really a good tool. I will surely include it. Thanks for the information. Will try the Xboot also.

      Delete
  7. Windows 7 SBB Tool, Passcape ISO Burner and Novicorp WinToFlash are another great tools. Well thanks Pravin for listing all the useful tools. I have used Rufus among all these. It is working beautifully for me.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You may add SUSE Studio ImageWriter to the list.

    You can find the download link here: http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, the tool is more of Linux world, so not yet used it, but will surely try it. Thanks for the information.

      Delete
  9. Hello and thanks for this article. I would like to know if Rufus is good for installing a bootable usb window xp intall. I used Rufus and it formatted my 8 GB usb then copied the XP iso into it. The whole operation went very well. But when booting using my prepared usb I got a hal.dll error message. Please help. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i had the same exact problem . i tried many usb bootable sfotwares
      and none work then i thought probably my system is too modern for this or i downloaded pirated copy from torrent but when i tried winto flash
      it finally worked
      sorry if the reply is too late
      I FOUND IT JUST NOW

      Delete
    2. i had the same problem
      i tried wintoflash and it worked
      Dont confuse it with wintobootic that is listed above

      Delete
    3. I must tell you that old OS like Windows XP do not support booting from USB drive. Please try other Windows OS or Linux.

      Delete
  10. everithing is good, i think...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Maybe I prefer Rufus. however, wintobotic is good although it can't run in linux. but, with wine, you can do it

    ReplyDelete
  12. hey guyz which one iz da best for win8?? i need that one plz..

    ReplyDelete
  13. hhey guyz which one iz da best for win8.. i need that one..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you want a straight forward way, use Rufus. Its the best.

      Delete
  14. What about LinuxLive USB Creator?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Benn, that is already included in the post. It is also called as LiLi. Short for Live Linux USB.

      Delete
  15. Hi, Thanks for the reviews

    I have a windows PC with a virus. I was thinking I would make a bootable USB with antivirus software, boot and then clean the hard drive.

    Which of this USB utilities do you think would work best? Or do you have another suggestion.

    Thanks a lot

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks a lot man.. Top 1 worked. Installed my windows.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I THINKS YOU'VE FORGOT TO PUBLISH ULTRA ISO TOO ; )

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, I think Ultra ISO is a paid software and we have included only the completely Free applications and not the trial versions. That is why, Ultra ISO is not in the list.

      Delete
  18. So useful! Keep works to reduce complexity! Thank you from Indonesia.

    ReplyDelete
  19. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Tried a few of them but YUMI did the job ! :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. IHi I am looking for easy way to remove additional(unused and corrupt) operating system from my pc..everytime i boot my system i get 4 option to choose my operating system..all windows xp.. I am currently booting from drive E...also my D drive got 2 windows files and c drive 1 file .. all these are basically error and non usable...kindly advise how to remove it without affecting the system..thanks---Jay

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hi, my pc has got more than 1 operating system(windows xp) due error...i want to get rid of inactive operating system,,advise me the easy way...i currently boot from drive E. which is ok.. i want to delete corrupt windows file from drive C(1 windows) and D(2 windows)...I dont want my pc to get hanged again..kindly advise me the safest way..thanks..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jay, better way is to delete and format those partitions C and D while you are installing the OS. You get that option when you install new OS.

      But if you already have installed it and you format the partitions now, you may get the boot partition not found error.
      I suggest you to install it once more and clean with deleting and formating the C and D drive.

      Delete
  23. For a multiboot USB drive checkout Easy2Boot on the RMPrepUSB website.

    ReplyDelete
  24. flash to win doesnt work in laptop

    ReplyDelete
  25. Thank you, this post was very useful as a reference.

    ReplyDelete
  26. It's a good article, but the reason I refused to "like" this site on Facebook (when the annoying pop-up asked it of me), and also the reason I may never use this site again, is because of little opportunistic tricks you play on your readers using links like the one you used for RUFUS in this article. There's a reason why things like...

    http://adf.ly

    ...are blocked by the HOSTS file managers (hpHosts, MVPSHosts, Peter Lowe's AdServers, etc.) and many anti-adware/anti-malware browser extensions and utilities.

    Shame on you for using it; it makes you and this site untrustworthy. If you cannot understand that, and why, then that, too, is part of the problem.


    __________________________________
    Gregg L. DesElms
    Napa, California USA
    gregg at greggdeselms dot com

    Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi.
    Veritas nimium altercando amittitur.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Thank you for this your sharing,good....

    ReplyDelete
  28. i think,,,yumi is best & simplest.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Thank you for all the great information.

    ReplyDelete
  30. My results in Feb 2017:

    WinSetupFromUSB 1.7 - Very nice, made a multi-bootable usb with 2 linux iso's and Acronis True Image iso.

    Xboot 1.0 beta 14 - useless, had error about "MANU" (should be MENU) in boot loader config. Rookie BS Fail! Also copied my linux isos to the usb twice wasting space and possibly overfilling it. This program is trash.

    Yumi 2.0.3.9 - did not like the limited pre-determined iso style of it. Did not even bother to test it further.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try www.easy2boot.com - for most ISOs, just copy the ISO files to the USB stick and boot.

      Delete
  31. dude which of them support hybrid iso file?

    ReplyDelete
  32. i created a boot usb with wifi slax on it i can get my older pc to load it but my new laptop i cant what am i doing wrong i did the ubootin i done the f10 thing can you help me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think, your New bios do not support the external USB or your Bios is locked to the Windows os. You can search for the term UEFI bios. You can surely turn off the feature if you want but the latest operating systems like Windows 10 need it for fast boot feature.

      Delete
  33. Is there any way to create a live android OS with persistent storage? The only one that creates persistent storage is Universal USB Installer, but that's only for Linux and i already have Linux Mint.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The live OS features are depend upon the OS itself. Not the burning application you are using. So if the Android OS allow you to use the persistent storage while using live disk. you can do it with any app.

      Delete
  34. Hi, is there any way to create persistent storage for my live iso Android OS?

    ReplyDelete
  35. how to pendrive to pendrive bootable any software

    ReplyDelete
  36. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  37. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Etcher for linux users,It's simple, it's easy

    ReplyDelete
  39. Etcher for linux users,It's simple, it's easy

    ReplyDelete
  40. any software to install multiple operating system in one usb device of gpt partion. plz reply fast

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What you want to install? GPT partition of Hard drive or you are asking about USB Drive?
      If you are asking about GPT on USB drive, Latest version of WInsetup will help.

      Delete
  41. I installed a multi boot program and now can NOPT access anything NOT even the BIOS, and nothing shows up on the screen anymore either... Can't recall which one I used NOT that it matters at this point... Any suggestions would be greatly welcomed...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think, the bootable USB have anything to do with your BIOS.
      Please refer to your motherboard manual to boot in to BIOS or UEFI.

      Delete
  42. Too good.Thank you it's very helpful for viewers.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Great Post! Thank you so much for sharing this informative post on best bootable usb creation tools. I am pretty impressed with the list & its tools. Keep up the good work & Keep Sharing...

    ReplyDelete
  44. dude you realize can just download those programs from there respective website instead of using that which i think is a virus because there is no viruses that come with the program that are shown so i would stop using that website.
    Joseph Donahue



    ReplyDelete
  45. I really need some help i would appreciate it so much if someone can help i have this problem extracting iso file it says The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process i tried deleting all the tabs while extracting didnt make a difference i also have 7 zip it also didnt work can some please help me thank you.
    CrazyAsk



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But why you want to extract an ISO file? You just have to locate the path in Rufus and Rufus will automatically do all steps.
      If you want to browse the files in ISO, you can mount the file. Just right click and select Mount.
      If you want to extract the ISO for any other reason, you can find what other process is using the file in Task manager or try a tiny tool from NirSoft. Just google it.

      Delete
  46. If the disk you are extending is in a linux guest OS once you have extended the disk in vmware go to the guest OS as root and use fdisk. Do a df to see the device name, something like /dev/sda, thus fdisk /dev/sda, enter p to see current partitions, n to create a new one, accept the default size and save with w. Once done you can now see the physical disk partition in Linux. You can then use lvm gui or manual commands to initialise the partition and extend your file system. Thanks Paul for pointing me in the right direction.

    Harold Burton

    ReplyDelete
  47. Thanks i wanted to install poweriso but it contained adware and chromium browser needs to be installed to install poweriso so i found you and you helped me allot thanks !

    Kelly Hubbard


    ReplyDelete