What is Rufus?
Rufus formats USB flash drives, flash cards and virtual drives, and writes bootable ISO or disk images, including compressed images. It supports BIOS and UEFI boot media, including UEFI bootable NTFS, and can prepare Windows, Linux and DOS boot drives.
The application runs locally on Windows without installation. Beyond writing installation media, it can create Windows To Go drives, persistent Linux partitions and images of existing drives in VHD/DD, VHDX and FFU formats. It also calculates image checksums, checks drives for bad blocks and performs runtime validation of UEFI bootable media.
For Windows installation workflows, Rufus can configure local account and privacy settings through OOBE parameters. It can also create Windows 11 installation media for PCs without TPM or Secure Boot. These options require attention to the target machine and installation settings, particularly when using silent installation.
Key capabilities
- Bootable media Creates BIOS or UEFI boot drives from bootable ISO files and disk images, including compressed images.
- Drive formatting Formats USB, flash card and virtual drives with file systems including FAT32, NTFS, exFAT and ext3.
- Windows preparation Configures installation parameters, creates Windows To Go drives and downloads official Microsoft Windows retail ISOs.
- Linux persistence Creates persistent Linux partitions for supported bootable media workflows.
- Drive imaging Saves existing drives as VHD/DD, VHDX or FFU images.
- Media validation Calculates image checksums, checks for bad blocks and fake flash drives, and validates UEFI bootable media at runtime.
Where Rufus fits
- Formatting USB, flash card and virtual drives to FAT, FAT32, NTFS, UDF, exFAT, ReFS, ext2 and ext3
- Bootable media for BIOS and UEFI, including UEFI bootable NTFS
- DOS boot drives using FreeDOS or MS-DOS
- Windows To Go and Windows 11 installation drives
- Image creation and checksum verification
- Drive health checks
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