Create a bootable USB stick with Rufus on Windows

[Akeo]

Rufus developer here. @kirkru is 100% right, there is absolutely no point in selecting FreeDOS or changing the Partition scheme or Target system options because these will be reset as soon as you select the Ubuntu ISO.

Also it may be worth mentioning that Rufus can compute the MD5/SHA1/SHA256 of the ISO if you click the blue (✓) button after selecting the image.

Finally recent versions of Rufus have added persistence support, so you will see an extra set of fields allowing you to set the size of the persistent partition (with a default of 0 meaning no persistence).

[crystalmethoddd]

Great tutorial. Everything worked perfectly overall. Improve it by adding a ‘read all steps’ text at the beginning of the tutorial. Add a Step 11 page showing how to run the Ubuntu USB. Took me a while to figure it out.

[luxifer]

In section 4 you write “The default selections for Partition scheme ( MBR ) and Target system ( BIOS (or UEFI-CSM) ) are appropriate (and are the only options available).”

I don’t agree. For people who don’t have CSM activated but only use native UEFI boot, which is true for many modern machines, the boot will fail and people will start telling them to activate CSM instead of flashing the stick properly (I just witnessed this ;)). For those people, the “appropriate” thing to do would be to select the GPT partitioning scheme (which, funnily enough, is the other option available :)), which will then select “UEFI (non CSM)” as the “only option” for the target system.

I know, it’s not as straight forward and people might not know what is set for their boot environment but the way it’s now, also isn’t ideal Maybe you could say something like “if you have a modern windows pc of the last 2 years or so, chose GPT”… or say to try GPT if MBR didn’t detect on boot or something like that.

[azmatipk]

Great tutorial. Everything worked perfectly overall.
In this video I have Just explained, how to make one usb drive bootable for all windows like 7, 8, 8.1 and windows 10.and symantec Ghost.
After view this video you can make single usb drive bootable for all windows.

[erikegon]

Despite the elaborate tutorial and great application interface, Rufus doesn’t work for me on Windows 10. My “Downloads” folder contains ISO files of several Ubuntu versions, but the download button only suggests the download of either Windows 10 or 8.1 (dropdown list) and no option to select something else. So, on my computer (regular PC) it doesn’t look in my Downloads folder at all. I tried copying an Ubuntu ISO to my “Documents” folder, but it doesn’t find that file also.

Tip: Win32DiskImager:

• automatic USB selection
• choose image
• Write
  DONE

[toysareforboys]

Click the little down arrow beside DOWNLOAD and choose SELECT, then it will let you pick the Ubuntu ISO you’ve already downloaded.

-Jamie M.

[johnny-mack]

I first tried using vers. 2.9 of Rufus and when I got the additional downloads window, one of the downloads failed.

I then downloaded Rufus 3.11 and everything worked fine. Perhaps a suggestion to use the latest version of Rufus would be helpful.

[_person_name5]

I couldn’t seem to get this working with Rufus 3.11. However, using BalenaEtcher worked just fine.

[david-allen69]

“Now choose boot option. Choices will be Non bootable and FreeDOS…”
No, there is a third, ISO image …

[wxl]

There are two problems with this:

1. Minor: the FreeDOS selection is outdated. Rufus now auto selects to Disk or ISO image, so nothing needs to be done there at all.
2. Major: The default file system is FAT32 which is fine and dandy but should someone decide to get smart and choose NTFS, the install will fail.

Also: I have heard others had more success with balenaEtcher than Rufus. It also has the benefit of being cross platform, reducing the amount of documentation that needs to be maintained. I should also point out that Ubuntu MATE recommends it for Windows.

[uplink777]

Hey there,

Any chance on updating the Rufus images? I’m using Rufus since early 2012 so I kind of get the whole tutorial, but people who are new to this might get easily confused,

And that’s all :), btw. very nice web!

With best regards

Bryan

[uplink777]

And, here we go, new version screenshots!

Sorry that I didn’t post them as embedded images, but I’m allowed to post only one image so , I uploaded it them to my server instead. But as soon as I get the permission to post more images, I’ll re-upload .png lossless images here.

Thx to @ian-weisser I’m able to add more images now!

P.S.: Step #7 in tutorial is rendered obsolete by the design of the newer version of Rufus.

[endolith]

Now choose the Boot selection. Choices will be Non bootable and FreeDOS. Since you are creating a bootable Ubuntu device select FreeDOS.

This is pointless since you’re going to replace it with Ubuntu in a few seconds anyway

[uplink777]

[silence48]

sorry for my rude reply.
There are a couple things that are inaccurate here, but nothing that will cause the average user any problems. There is one thing that I would change is the thing about selecting freedos… you don’t need to select anything there, as that is choosing the image to write, and the next step is to select the ubuntu image.

[bergamin]

ISO vs DD alert comes before download things alert, but in tutorial it’s other way round

[bergamin]

Boot selection is a bit confusing. Tutorial tells to select FreeDOS, but then it is substituted by the ISO filename after SELECT. It’s not clear if that step is actually necessary

[local-optimum]

Hi folks, thanks for all the feedback on this tutorial and the great screenshots @uplink777!

I have now updated the flow, but in addition point users to the balanaEtcher tutorial now incorporated in our primary Install Ubuntu Desktop tutorial which has also had an overhaul.

Any further feedback and comments welcome and apologies for the delay incorporating all these suggestions!

[bergamin]

You probably would want to update some screenshots there. The very first one for instance, not only it depicts an older version of Ubuntu, but the queen is not 90 anymore for a long time (actually even dead), which shows how long this tutorial haven’t been updated (maybe change the article on the screenshot to something that couldn’t be easily aged)

[cmgui2]

Please change the title of this tutorial from “Create a bootable USB stick with Rufus on Windows” to “Create a bootable USB stick Installation Media with Rufus on Windows”. The current title can be misleading as it could mean creating a portable Ubuntu system on a bootable USB stick. Thank you.