I have always used Etcher[0] and I love it. [0] https://www.balena.io/etcher/
Etcher is easy to use but why on earth did they decide to make it an electron app?
Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
41–50 of 208 posts
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#42Windows 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.
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#43This has been my go to for years now. It’s especially useful whenever a friend or family member hits me up with a “computer question” that inevitably leads to “let’s just reinstall whatever you had before” and I just need something quick that works.
How do ordinary people manage bung up their systems so badly that the thing to do is reinstall the whole thing? And this happens often enough that it’s worth carrying around a tool to do this? I thought that by now systems would be adequately armoured against this.
Usually there is a recovery partition, and Windows 10 has a built-in function for a refresh/reinstall from the recovery partition. No USB drive needed. I did this recently over the phone for a relative's computer, but I forgot the exact name of this feature in the settings/control panel.
In my case, it was necessary because the computer had not been used for months and was unable to connect to various websites, perhaps due to an out-of-date certificate. Rather than troubleshoot the issue, it was easier to just do the refresh.
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#44Windows 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.
[deleted]
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#45Another similar/related project is: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy
Thanks for sharing that is extremely helpful.
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#46Windows 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.
I have used Rufus from Macs (my primary work devices) to create bootable Windows installers on USB to reinstall my gaming PCs plenty of times :)
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#47This has been my go to for years now. It’s especially useful whenever a friend or family member hits me up with a “computer question” that inevitably leads to “let’s just reinstall whatever you had before” and I just need something quick that works.
How do ordinary people manage bung up their systems so badly that the thing to do is reinstall the whole thing? And this happens often enough that it’s worth carrying around a tool to do this? I thought that by now systems would be adequately armoured against this.
Within the last year on the same system I've had both windows 10 and a linux install commit suicide via update with no particularly special conditions. I later figured out what happened with the linux system only after some frustration and paving over it. It was a defect in a distro provided config file that resulted in the initramfs not having the proper support for the filesystem.
With windows no automated repair could fix it and the whole system is so opaque that I will probably never know what happened other than it works after reinstall.
Even if nothing ever goes wrong you will eventually need to install to a new system and usb drives are incredibly cheap with a 64GB USB 3.1 weighing in at all of $8-$12. You needn't carry it around just stick it in a desk drawer.
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#48Easy2Boot is another good one. Creates USB boot disks with multiple OS ISOs on and boot into any of them. It’s no longer being updated, but still works, just used it this week.
The only caveat is you need to make sure each ISO is stored on the USB in a contiguous file, since it tricks the host machine into thinking each ISO is separate partition. It includes a .cmd script for doing this on Windows, or on Linux you can use `rsync —preallocate` to copy the ISOs continuously.
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do ordinary people manage bung up their systems so badly that the thing to do is reinstall the whole thing? And this happens often enough that it’s worth carrying around a tool to do this? I thought that by now systems would be adequately armoured against this.
Usually there is a recovery partition, and Windows 10 has a built-in function for a refresh/reinstall from the recovery partition. No USB drive needed. I did this recently over the phone for a relative's computer, but I forgot the exact name of this feature in the settings/control panel. In my case, it was necessary because the computer had not been used for months and was unable to connect to various websites, perha…
"Reset this PC" is one possibility that you're thinking of. Has options for saving or deleting all user-dir files, (afaik) always removes installed applications. Can also fully format the disk, and pull a clean copy of the installer from the 'net.
Re: Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility
#50Windows 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.
If you‘re under Windows and want any stick, use Rufus.
If you‘re under Linux (or Mac) and have an Iso, use dd.
At least that‘s how I do it.