Creating a bootable USB flash drive from an ISO file using Rufus

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If you have an ISO file that could be written to a CD or DVD to boot a system, but wish to use it to create a bootable USB flash drive and wish to do so using software on a Microsoft Windows system, you can use Rufus. The developer is Pete Batard and his blog can be found at Pete's Blog; the GitHub page for the software is at rufus. To write the .iso file to a flash drive using Rufus you can take the following steps:
  1. Provide the credentials for an account with administrator access on the system when prompted.
  2. You will be asked "Do you want to allow Rufus to check for application updates online?" You can click on "Yes" to allow it to check for an update to the program.

    Rufus update policy

  3. At the "Drive Properties" window, make sure the correct USB device is selected in the "Device" field if you have multiple USB drives connected to the system.

    Rufus - Drive Properties

  4. If you already have the ISO file downloaded, click on the Select button (click on the button rather than clicking on the downward pointing arrowhead next to it which will give you the option of selecting "Download"). When you do so, you will be able to browse to the location where you downloaded the .iso file.
  5. When you have selected the .iso file to write to the USB flash drive, click on Start.

    Rufus - Boot Selection - Lubuntu

  6. If you see an "ISOHybrid image detected" window with the following message, you can click on OK to accept the default option to write in ISO Image mode:

    The image you have selected is an 'ISOHybrid' image. This means it can be written in either in ISO image (file copy) mode or DD Image (disk image) mode. Rufus recommends using ISO Image mode, so that you always have full access to the drive after writing it.
    However, if you encounter issues during boot, you can try writing this image again in DD Image mode.

    ISOHybrid image detected

  7. You will see a warning message notifying you that you will lose any data stored on the USB flash drive where you will be writing the contents of the .iso file. You can click on OK to proceed if you are certain there is no data on the drive that you need to preserve.

    Rufus warning

  8. When the process is completed, the status changes to "Ready" and you can click on Close.

    Rufus - Status - Ready