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Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

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Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#191
post #28

Windows images that are over 4.3GB(I don't remember the exact max size) most image burning tools will fallback to NTFS on the USB formatting and some motherboards/laptops don't like this. (Even on my rather modern Dell laptop) The best solution so far I've found is to manually partition the USB into a 1GB FAT32 partition and the rest NTFS. Then you extract the files where needed [0] I learned this method just last ye…

I'm as big a Rufus fan as anyone, but for Windows 10 why wouldn't I just use Microsoft's boot image creator? That's what I've done lately, and it works every time with no fuss. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Edit: I just remembered that you might not be on a Windows device, in which case you may well want to download the ISO and use Rufus to make a bootable stick from it.

Rufus is vastly more reliable, flexible, and orders of magnitude faster.

So long as you enable updates (to enable online functionality), the "SELECT" button has a dropdown to change it to "DOWNLOAD".

Click "DOWNLOAD", it walks you through a script ("Fido") that grabs the latest Windows 10 ISO (and lets you download it directly or using a browser). You can then use that ISO to make your bootable USB.

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#192
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. hundred+ MB electron app, instead Rufus being few hundreds of KB and around 10x more flexible in corner cases. I really despise BE from engineering perspective.

It never occurred to me to judge a flashing tool based on its internal architecture and language/framework choice. I judge it based on whether I get a bootable bit of flash out the other side.

Rufus is just straight-up better, though? It's smaller, faster, more configurable, doesn't require installation, doesn't opt you in to analytics (wtf are they even analyzing?), and doesn't advertise the developer's other projects.

Even ignoring those last two, which just seem gross, running an entire web browser to accomplish the same thing as a 1MB native application is like using an anvil as a hammer. Yeah, it'll work, but why?

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#193
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never occurred to me to judge a flashing tool based on its internal architecture and language/framework choice. I judge it based on whether I get a bootable bit of flash out the other side.

Rufus is just straight-up better, though? It's smaller, faster, more configurable, doesn't require installation, doesn't opt you in to analytics (wtf are they even analyzing?), and doesn't advertise the developer's other projects. Even ignoring those last two, which just seem gross, running an entire web browser to accomplish the same thing as a 1MB native application is like using an anvil as a hammer. Yeah, it'll w…

I don’t know if it’s better; it seems like it could easily be as good, but I’ll check it out the first time Etcher fails to make a working flash drive.

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#195
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you rely on installing ftom USB. It is many years, and many baremetal installs, since I had had access to a DVD drive. Curious about what kind of issues you are having with installing ftom USB

I can 2nd that. Maybe its just that I buy low quality USB drives, but I sometimes have go through the process a few times with different drives before getting one that actually works. Its a lot less hit or miss with Windows ISOs, but Linux ones can be VERY finicky.

People downvoted me but this was kind of my point. USB drives do usually work, but I still have experiences however rare, that a particular server and USB combination is not working so when there are situations that I have to travel somewhere and be 100% certain that an OS install is going to be possible I still feel the need to have an optical drive.

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#197
post #123
post #66

Well have to say Rufus is good. But there is a far better tool: Ventoy. You will only need to format your thumb drive once and for all. After that, you will simply only need to copy the image file such as .iso, .vhd etc on to the drive and you are all set. Check details from the following sites. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy

Just tried it because it seem great and it booted parted magic fine but trying to boot on W10 20H2 iso just got me stuck on a black window inside ventoy. Too bad because I'd really like to have a single USB with everything I could really carry around instead of a bunch of small one.

Have you tried YUMI? https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

I've used it to successfully boot into both Windows and Linux. Although it's is only available for Windows, there seems to be a Linux counterpart as well, which I've never tried out: https://www.pendrivelinux.com/multiboot-create-a-multiboot-u...

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#198
post #66

Well have to say Rufus is good. But there is a far better tool: Ventoy. You will only need to format your thumb drive once and for all. After that, you will simply only need to copy the image file such as .iso, .vhd etc on to the drive and you are all set. Check details from the following sites. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy

I just wrote Ventoy to my megastick, wrote FreeBSD and Debian Install images, and it works. Debian Bullseye install image complains about low-memory mode, but the booted machine had >500MB still available. Abstraction breaks somewhere, I would love to know why/how. Without diving into the source code. :) Has anyone seen architecture/design documents on how it actually mounts the ISO file and "boots" from it? What doe…

Silly question, but...is your megastick just a large-capacity USB stick?

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#199
post #66

Well have to say Rufus is good. But there is a far better tool: Ventoy. You will only need to format your thumb drive once and for all. After that, you will simply only need to copy the image file such as .iso, .vhd etc on to the drive and you are all set. Check details from the following sites. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy

This is amazing. Thank you!

Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wrote Ventoy to my megastick, wrote FreeBSD and Debian Install images, and it works. Debian Bullseye install image complains about low-memory mode, but the booted machine had >500MB still available. Abstraction breaks somewhere, I would love to know why/how. Without diving into the source code. :) Has anyone seen architecture/design documents on how it actually mounts the ISO file and "boots" from it? What doe…

Silly question, but...is your megastick just a large-capacity USB stick?

Yes.
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