Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Rufus is a small utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.

It can be especially useful for cases where:

• you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, EFI, etc.)
• you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed
• you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
• you want to run a low-level utility

Despite its small size, Rufus provides everything you need!

Oh, and Rufus is fast. For instance it's about twice as fast as UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer orWindows 7 USB download tool, on the creation of a Windows 7 USB installation drive from an ISO (with honorable mention to WiNToBootic for managing to keep up). It is also marginally faster on the creation of Linux bootable USB from ISOs ⁽¹⁾.
A non exhaustive list of Rufus supported ISOs is also provided at the bottom of this page ⁽²⁾.

Finally, please remember that once formatted, your drive is still usable as before to transfer data: it doesn't have to be dedicated for DOS or ISO installation only.

Download

• Rufus v1.3.2 (442 KB)
• Other versions

From version 1.2.0, a single version of Rufus is provided, that includes FreeDOS support.

If you create a DOS bootable drive and use a non-US keyboard, Rufus will attempt to select a keyboard layout according to the locale of your system. In that case, FreeDOS, which is the default selection, is recommended over MS-DOS as it supports more keyboard layouts.

Once downloaded, the application is ready to use — no installation or other files are necessary.

System Requirements

Windows XP or later, 32 or 64 bit doesn't matter.
If elevation is required, you will be prompted for it.