How To Create Bootable USB Drive With Rufus in 2024

If you want to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 or Windows 10 OS on your PC or laptop? There’s nothing cheaper than a Windows bootable USB. Just download an ISO image and create a bootable USB drive with Rufus for free.

Rufus is a small tool that enables you to quickly format the USB drive and make it bootable. You can easily create bootable USB from Windows 7, 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11 ISO files.

You can download Rufus for free from our website. Here’s the complete tutorial to d create a bootable USB drive.

ISO Image File vs Bootable USB Drive

An ISO image file or ISO file is an archive file that contains an identical copy (or image) of data & files found on an optical disc (DVD, or CD).

A bootable USB drive is a simple flash drive containing a Windows ISO file with a boot sector. A Windows ISO file is an archive containing all the required files of the Windows operating system, same as a Windows CD or DVD.

How To Create Bootable USB Drive With Rufus

Three things are required to create a bootable USB:

1. Download Windows ISO file.
2. Download Rufus latest version from Softlay. (aka rufus.ie)
3. A USB Pen Drive with 8 GB of free space.

After getting these things ready, follow the steps mentioned below to create a Windows bootable USB from Windows 7, or Windows 10 ISO file.

Step 1: Format your USB flash drive.

Step 2: Open Rufus tools and Plug USB into your PC.

Step 3: Click on the DEVICE option, then choose the USB/Flash drive from the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Check the Boot Selection option that must be (Disk or ISO image) then click Select. Rufus will open a file explorer and locate the ISO image into your Drives, select it.

^{Note: Latest version of Rufus (3.12) has the option to download the Windows 8.1 or 10 ISO file through Rufus tools. If you already have a Windows ISO file, instead of the DOWNLOAD button, click on SELECT.}

Step 5: To create standard Windows installation, Rufus will detect the correct Partition scheme automatically e.g (C: Drive), keep the default settings if you don’t want to install Windows in any other drive.

Step 6: You can change the Volume label to a different name, but it’s not important, Just leave as it is, also leave the File System and Cluster Size on default settings. Now click on START.

Step 7: It will show a warning, “any data on the USB will be destroyed”. This is normal, simply click OK.

Rufus will start creating the ISO image on the USB.

Step 8: When Rufus has finished creating the ISO image, close Rufus. Congratulations! Your Windows bootable USB is ready.

How to Install Windows 7, 10 & 11 from Bootable USB?

After creating a bootable USB using Rufus, you can now easily install Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows 11 on your PC using this pen drive.