Tools to make bootable USB?

[pneuma1985]

Well I recently got like 10 new sandisk usb's a few 32 a few 16 and a few 8gb ones the cruzer blades. And I wanted to make a new win7 usb on one of these disks a well as other bootable os's I have an older usb with win7 on it but I cant for the life of me remember what tool I used exactly. There are a bunch the MS one which is garbage. Rufus which hits for FP's and ZotacWinUSBMaker, Windows bootable image creator, and unebootin. I've seen a few really old threads around here but I figured I'd bring the thread up again and see if there are any better tools now since I honestly can't remember what I used when I did it before. Any input is greatly appreciated I'm going to be making bootable's of MINT, Windows7, Windows8.1, and Windows10. I need something that'll do all of them properly without to much hassle or malware coming with it. I also wanted to make a multi boot usb on one of them for the many tools for issues if they may arise.

Thankyou Admin for changing my post sorry about that definitely needed some admin assistance... Didn't realize we couldn't change the title after we submitted the thread.

 

[songoku316]

rufus is very good tool and easy to use

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

 

[ifacedown]

Rufus ---

Could handle almost any:

1.) Linux LiveCd distro
2.) Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 x86 and x64

Plus, it will not change the partition size of your flash drive.

 

[Sana]

I think with 4GB+ drives, you could create Bootable USB media installers.
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool - Microsoft Store
Install Windows 7 from a USB drive the very easy way - Bootable USB

Well if you need an Antivirus / Antimalware bootable, try these @ 15 Free Bootable Antivirus Programs

Rufus Alternatives and Similar Software - AlternativeTo.net

 

[kev216]

The ones I have used so far are Yumi and Sardu.

• Yumi is mostly used for Linux (Ubuntu and it's variants), but I've read that you also can use it for windows installations
• Another good one is Sardu, which you can use for windows installation, as well as for Linux and others. A very good thing about Sardu is that it also has an option to download Boot disks from different antvirus vendors. The program shows a long list of all the AV boot diks and with just one click, it downloads the latest version automatically for you, so no need to search on the internet to download the disks manually. On top of that it also has the option to add some utilities like testdisk, or memory testers. It has support for multiple OS and boot disks at one usb. You just have to click the one you want to boot or use in the menu, when booting from USB. Definitely software that is worth to take a look at.

 

[pneuma1985]

I had no issues what so ever with ZotacWinUSBMaker it did exactly what I wanted it to do at least for windows iso's. As far as sizes, I'd have gotten some 4gb sticks as well I just couldn't find any on sale and I was getting the 16gb pack of 2 for 6$ so was like ok I'll buy a few of those and a few of the 8gb which were also on sale for sandisk on amazon. I do plan on grabbing some 4gb ones as well as soon as they are on sale even though they are cheap lol Like the standard Cruzer is 15.89 for a 4gb stick lol though there is the two pack of blades for 9.99! I got em at a good deal couldn't pass it up and I can use a few of em as transfer drives also.
I may try rufus since its one that does mutli boot which I'd like to set a multi boot up with everything I could possibly need on it which I usually do anyway just wanted drives with faster r/w speeds which these are for usb 2.0 I have plenty of usb3.0 sticks. The cruzer blade installed windows twice as fast as my old 2.0 stick which is also a sandisk but none the less like 5-6 maybe 7 years old.
@kev216 Sardu sounds awesome and I've used yumi before I couldn't remember the names of any of these bootable utilities except rufus sadly, lol shows how long its been since I've made bootables.

Strange though I click on the download link and it downloaded sardu but it also auto-opened their facebook page with ghostery running. HMM Odd

 

[Rishi]

I would go with with Rufus or WinSetupFromUSB which uses the somewhat complex RMPrepUSB tool,Bootice etc coded in AutoIt. Also, there is a way to re-use thumb drive using this backup and restore tool : USB Flash Tools

I only have one 16 Gb blade which I use for multi-purpose, I make a bootable image, back it up , format my thumb drive and restore as per my needs.That's like one step ahead of bootable media.

 

[pneuma1985]

I would go with with Rufus or WinSetupFromUSB which uses the somewhat complex RMPrepUSB tool,Bootice etc coded in AutoIt. Also, there is a way to re-use thumb drive using this backup and restore tool : USB Flash Tools

I only have one 16 Gb blade which I use for multi-purpose, I make a bootable image, back it up , format my thumb drive and restore as per my needs.That's like one step ahead of bootable media.

Nice that just seems like to much work lol. Sooner have 30 drives and just have one for everything and I use one of those sharpie gel markers and label them all. WinSetupFromUSB looks promising you said it was somewhat complex? In what way before I give it a go... J/W if you meant configuring it for your needs is complex or the GUI is complex or what?

 

[Rishi]

Not really, I rarely need to format systems, until then I keep it clean.But I am sure you have your purpose for each thumb drive figured out, good luck

 

[pneuma1985]

Not really, I rarely need to format systems, until then I keep it clean.But I am sure you have your purpose for each thumb drive figured out, good luck

Yeah I've been going through an issue with my parents computer which I "have to fix " my dad blew through the dvd drive somehow and some other hardware issues I had to fix. My dad also wanted me to save his data at the same time and put a new SSD in it. But I'm sure the computer is infected with god knows what. So I needed to make a specific multiboot usb for it to remove whatever is on the system. And get him running a proper config on his 3 yo Dell. So yup I def have to reformat the drive either way after I'm done and retrieve the data he wants and at the same time do it safely. I may even dban the drive given how computer illiterate he is and the fact that it'll be a secondary drive after I drop the SSD in it so why not make sure its completely clean. So far just running a zemana anti-malware scan, I've got 67 objects. So I decided yeah I should def run some bootable scanners to remove all this garbage. Though this wasn't the actual reason I bought the USB sticks lol just happened to coincide with me buying them and I figured why not use one with exactly what I need on it to clean his system. Shouldn't be to hard but thanks for all the input guys on the multi-bootable usb tools cant thank you enough.

 

[Rishi]

Yeah add some nice baremetals backup option as well once you are done disinfecting + retrieving + formatting the drive.Just in case, something like this occurs again.And it will be a good test for the new sticks(which I am hoping will be covered under warranty period for now)

 

[Deleted member 2913]

How is UNetBootin?