How to Create a Bootable USB With Rufus (Step-by-Step)

Quick answer: To create a bootable USB with Rufus, download the portable Rufus 4.15 build from rufus.ie, plug in a 16 GB USB stick you have already backed up, select your Windows or Linux ISO under Boot selection, keep Partition scheme on GPT and Target system on UEFI (non CSM) for any modern PC, click START, confirm the erase warning, and wait for the green READY bar. For Windows 11, leave the Windows User Experience boxes unticked on a supported PC — those bypasses are only for hardware that does not meet Microsoft’s requirements, and a bypassed install is unsupported.

Rufus is a small, portable Windows utility that writes an ISO image to a USB drive and makes that drive bootable, so a PC can start from it instead of its internal drive. The current stable release is Rufus 4.15, dated June 30, 2026, and the portable Windows x64 build is a 1.9 MB download that needs no installation — you run the executable, and that is the whole program (Rufus official download page). It requires Windows 8 or later to run, which matters for one practical reason: you make the USB on a working Windows PC, then use it on any PC, including one with no working operating system at all. I verified this guide against the official Rufus 4.15 download page, Microsoft’s Windows 11 download and specifications pages, and Ubuntu’s current release listing, because Rufus itself runs on Windows and the write step belongs on a Windows PC. Where a step depends on your exact hardware — the boot-menu key, for example — I say so instead of pretending one key works everywhere.

The most common failure in this whole job is not a Rufus setting at all. It is picking the wrong USB stick, or the wrong drive in Rufus, and erasing something you wanted to keep. Rufus formats the target drive completely, with no undo. So the first rule of this guide is a boring one: back up the stick, then check the drive name and size in Rufus twice before you click START. If you have already lost files to a bad format, this site’s guide to recovering permanently deleted files on Windows 11 explains what can and cannot come back — but a formatted USB stick is exactly the case where recovery is uncertain, so prevention beats every recovery tool here.

What do I need before I start?

• A Windows PC to run Rufus on. Rufus 4.15 requires Windows 8 or later, and it needs administrator rights to write to a USB drive. There is no Mac or Linux version of Rufus itself.
• A USB stick, 16 GB or larger for Windows 11. Older guides say 8 GB, and Microsoft’s own older guidance said 8 GB or more, but current images have grown: Ubuntu’s 26.04.1 desktop ISO alone is listed at 6.0 GB on Ubuntu’s release server, and Windows 11 images are multi-gigabyte and larger with each release. A 16 GB stick leaves headroom for the image, Rufus’s formatting, and the extra small boot partition Rufus creates for UEFI systems. For a Linux-only stick, 8 GB is usually enough, but 16 GB costs little and removes the guesswork.
• An ISO file for the system you want to install. For Windows 11, get the multi-edition ISO for x64 devices from Microsoft’s Download Windows 11 page, under Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO). For Ubuntu, get the desktop ISO from Ubuntu’s download page. Download the ISO from the vendor, never from a mirror site that repackages it, and keep the download until the USB is verified — if the write fails, you want to retry without downloading several gigabytes again.
• Ten to twenty minutes of uninterrupted time. A Windows 11 write typically takes about 10 minutes on a USB 3.0 stick, longer on USB 2.0. Do not pull the stick out mid-write, and do not let the PC sleep during it if you can avoid it.

How do I download Rufus safely?

Go to rufus.ie and download the portable build, rufus-4.15p.exe, for a standard Windows x64 PC. The portable build is the same program as the standard build without an installer to manage — double-click it and it runs. Avoid search-result ads and lookalike download buttons: Rufus is popular enough that repackaged installers exist, and the official page is the only source I would trust. As a second check, the official page states that the executable is digitally signed and that the signature should name Akeo Consulting. If Windows SmartScreen warns you on first run, that is normal for a small developer-signed utility; check the publisher name in the prompt before you allow it, and do not allow a build whose publisher is anything else.

Pick the right build for your PC. Most readers want the Windows x64 portable build (1.9 MB). The download page also lists a Windows x86 build (1.8 MB) for 32-bit systems and a Windows ARM64 build (5.2 MB) for ARM PCs. A beta build, 4.16, was also listed on the page at the time of writing, but for an installer stick you should use the stable 4.15 release, not a beta: a boot drive is the wrong place to test unfinished software.

How do I create a bootable USB with Rufus, step by step?

1. Back up the USB stick, then plug it in. Copy anything on it somewhere else. Rufus will erase the whole drive, not just one folder on it.
2. Run Rufus as administrator. Double-click rufus-4.15p.exe and accept the User Account Control prompt. If Rufus does not see your stick, try another USB port — a USB 3.0 port is fastest, but a USB 2.0 port is more forgiving on older hardware — and check that no other program has the drive open.
3. Check the Device box. Rufus lists detected USB drives in the Device dropdown. Confirm the name and the size match the stick you just plugged in, not an external hard drive or a second stick. This is the step that prevents data loss, and it is worth ten seconds every time.
4. Select the ISO. Under Boot selection, make sure Disk or ISO image is chosen, click SELECT, and open your ISO file. Rufus reads the image and fills in the volume label and several settings automatically — that auto-fill is a feature, not something to fight. If a setting below looks wrong after you select the ISO, fix that one setting; do not change everything at once.
5. Set the partition scheme and target system. For a modern PC, use GPT with UEFI (non CSM). The official Rufus page’s own screenshot shows exactly this pair for a Windows 11 ISO. For a PC that only boots in legacy BIOS mode, use MBR with BIOS (or UEFI-CSM) instead. The table below covers every common case.
6. Leave the file system on Rufus’s default for your ISO. For Windows 11, Rufus selects NTFS, because the Windows install image is larger than the 4 GB maximum file size FAT32 allows. For Ubuntu and most Linux images, FAT32 is the usual choice, and Rufus will set it. Changing the file system by hand is the fastest way to make a drive that a PC refuses to boot from, so only change it if you have a specific reason and know which limit you are working around.
7. Decide the Windows User Experience options, if they appear. For a Windows 11 ISO, Rufus shows a Windows User Experience dialog after you click START. On a PC that meets Microsoft’s requirements, untick everything and click OK — you want a normal, supported installation. Only consider the bypass boxes on a PC that genuinely fails the requirements, and read the warning section below first.
8. Click START and confirm the erase warning. Rufus warns that all data on the device will be destroyed. If the drive name and size in that warning are not your stick, stop. For Linux ISOs, Rufus may also ask whether to write in ISO Image mode or DD Image mode — choose ISO Image mode, the recommended default, unless you have a specific reason to write the image byte-for-byte in DD mode.
9. Wait for READY. The status bar turns green and reads READY when the write is complete. Do not remove the stick early, even if the progress bar looks finished — Rufus verifies the write at the end. When it says READY, close Rufus and eject the drive safely from Windows.

Which Rufus settings should I use for Windows 11, Linux, and old PCs?

Rufus fills most of these in for you once it reads the ISO. Use this table to check its choices, not to override them blindly. The wrong partition scheme is the most common reason a finished stick does not appear in a PC’s boot menu: a UEFI PC will not boot an MBR stick, and a legacy-BIOS PC will not boot a GPT stick.

Should I use Rufus’s Windows 11 bypass options?

First, check whether you actually need a bypass. Microsoft’s minimum requirements for Windows 11 are a compatible 64-bit processor with 2 or more cores, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, UEFI firmware with Secure Boot capability, and TPM version 2.0 (Microsoft: Windows 11 specifications). Many PCs that appear to fail the TPM check simply have their firmware TPM switched off: press Windows plus R, type tpm.msc, and see whether Windows detects a TPM. If it does not, look in your firmware settings for Intel PTT or AMD fTPM and switch it on. A switched-off firmware TPM is a settings fix, not a reason to bypass anything.

Rufus’s Windows User Experience dialog offers boxes that remove the TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and RAM checks, skip the Microsoft account requirement by creating a local account, and turn off features such as automatic device encryption and data collection. Those boxes exist for PCs that genuinely cannot meet the requirements. The trade-off is real and Microsoft states it plainly in its support position: installations on devices that do not meet the minimum requirements are not supported, and updates, including security updates, are not guaranteed on them. Use a bypass only if you understand that you are trading a supported installation for a working one, keep that PC off sensitive work if you can, and do not use a bypass on a PC that passes the checks — you gain nothing and lose support.

How do I boot from the USB drive I just made?

1. Plug the finished USB stick into the target PC and restart it.
2. As the PC starts, press the one-time boot-menu key for your maker — commonly F12, F2, Esc, or Del, shown briefly on the maker’s logo screen. The key varies by maker, so watch that screen or check the maker’s support page rather than guessing.
3. In the boot menu, choose the entry that starts with UEFI and names your USB stick. If you see both a UEFI entry and a non-UEFI entry for the same stick, pick the UEFI one for a GPT stick.
4. If the stick does not appear at all, check three things in order: try a different USB port, check that Secure Boot is not blocking the stick (temporarily disabling Secure Boot for the install is a firmware setting, and you can re-enable it afterwards), and confirm you used GPT with UEFI for a modern PC or MBR with BIOS for a legacy PC. A stick built with the wrong scheme will simply not show up, and rebuilding it with the other scheme is the fix.
5. Once Windows or Ubuntu setup starts, follow the installer’s own steps. The USB stick’s job is done at that point — it got the installer running. If you are installing Windows, you will still need a valid license to activate it; the ISO download itself does not include one.

How do I verify the USB drive before I trust it?

Do this check on the Windows PC before you carry the stick to another machine, because a failed write discovered at install time costs you a second trip and a second download:

• Wait for Rufus’s green READY bar. A stick pulled out early can look complete in File Explorer and still fail halfway through setup.
• Open the stick in File Explorer and confirm it contains the installer’s files — for Windows, the setup files and sources folder; for Ubuntu, the boot and EFI folders — not a single ISO file sitting on the stick. If you see one ISO file, you copied the ISO instead of writing it with Rufus, and the stick will not boot.
• If you suspect a corrupted download, verify the ISO before you rewrite: Microsoft publishes a SHA-256 hash for each Windows 11 language on its download page, and Ubuntu publishes SHA256SUMS files in the same release directory as its ISOs. A hash mismatch means the download is damaged or tampered with — download it again from the vendor, do not write it anyway.
• Test-boot if you can. Even reaching the Windows setup language screen, or Ubuntu’s Try Ubuntu screen, proves the stick boots. You can cancel at that screen without installing anything.

What if Rufus fails or the PC will not boot from the stick?

• Rufus does not list the drive. Try another USB port, close any program that has the drive open, and run Rufus as administrator. Rufus does not list external hard drives or SSDs by default; if your target is a USB SSD rather than a stick, use the advanced drive properties option to list USB hard drives, and double-check the size before you proceed.
• The write fails partway through. Try a different stick first — a failing flash drive is the most common cause — then a different USB port, then a fresh ISO download. A hash mismatch on the ISO points at the download, not at Rufus.
• The stick does not appear in the boot menu. Rebuild it with the other partition scheme: GPT with UEFI for modern PCs, MBR with BIOS for legacy PCs. Also try disabling Secure Boot temporarily, and try a USB 2.0 port on older machines, whose firmware sometimes ignores USB 3.0 ports at boot time.
• Windows setup says the PC does not meet the requirements. That is the TPM, Secure Boot, CPU, RAM, or storage check failing. Check tpm.msc and your firmware TPM setting first, then decide knowingly whether to rebuild with Rufus’s bypass boxes, accepting the unsupported-installation trade-off described above.
• The stick boots but setup freezes or errors. Try the stick in a different USB port and, if you have one, a different PC. If it fails identically on two PCs, the ISO or the stick is the problem; if it works on the second PC, the first PC’s firmware settings are the problem.

One last habit worth keeping: label the stick. A bootable installer looks identical to every other USB stick in a drawer, and the next person to pick it up will assume it is empty storage. A small label with the system and version — Windows 11, Ubuntu 26.04 — stops the most avoidable accident in this whole guide, which is formatting your installer because you forgot what it was.

Frequently Asked Questions