Rufus is a small utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc. 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 or Windows 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 USBs from ISOs. A non-exhaustive list of Rufus supported ISOs is available here.
It can be especially useful for cases where:
- you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, 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
What's new in Rufus 2.10.973:
- Add SHA-256 validation for downloaded files. You will now see an ✓ or ✗ in the log for relevant content
- Add support for O2Micro PCI-E card readers
- Add compressed NTFS support for UEFI:NTFS
- Improve automatic closure of the Windows default format prompt
- Improve support for Ubuntu (silence a benign warning), Springdale (use the actual label) and Antergos (Syslinux version detection)
- Work around a Windows bug that can render a GPT disk inaccessible after cleanup (e.g. ChromeOS image)
- Fix hash computation for content that isn't a multiple of 64 bytes (NB: This did not affect ISOs)
- Fix Syslinux installation on some media, with huge thanks to 424778940z for the tests
- Fix a corner case where settings could be altered after Start had been pressed, if a hotplug event also occurred
- Additional fixes and improvements
Download: Rufus 2.10.973 | 915 KB (Open Source)
Link: Rufus Home Page
