Do you need to install an operating system in your Computer? Then quickly grab a CD or DVD and burn the OS in it to install. Is that sounds good? Nah, it is an old school trick. Now we just use a pen drive to create a bootable USB for installation of OS. We do not need any CD/DVD to install Windows or Linux on our laptop or PCs. Just a simple 4Gb or 8Gb USB drive, anyone can do this with little knowledge and the right tools in possession.
How to Make a Bootable USB?
Oct 25, 2015 Step-5 (Format the USB Drive for Mac) Select the USB Drive that you want to format for Mac and finally right click on it and hit on Format Disc for Mac. Step-6 ( Create Bootable USB drive) Select the USB Drive that you want to make it bootable and finally right click on it and hit on Restore with Disc Image. Select the disc image to restore on. Dec 07, 2015 Here’s a step by step guide on how to make a Mac OS X Yosemite Installer USB Drive. If you’ve already downloaded the OS X Yosemite installer application, you will find it in the /Applications/ folder on your Mac then you can skip steps 1 and 2 and directly go to step 3. USB Image Tool uses IMG and IMA format and allows you to create and recover images, as wel as to have different profilesand mange them to copy one or another backup depending on the profile you are using. Finally, USB Image Tool doesn't need to be installed, so.
- Take a pen drive.
- Mount it to your computer or laptop
- Download the ISO of the operating system you want to install.
- Install any of the below-given Pen drive bootable creators.
- Select the attached USB drive and Insert ISO file.
- And start the flashing process to burn the file of the OS from the computer to your USB drive to produce a Bootable USB.
- Then simply restart the system to start the booting for OS installation.
So, in the context of the same here are some best free or opensource software to create the bootable USB.
Rufus- Open source USB bootable creator
I just cannot ignore Rufus when we talk about the bootable software to create a bootable USB. It should be top of the list for the nature it has. The open-source availability of it makes an advantage for us to access Rufus freely and get the job done quickly. Another very useful point it brings to us is there is no need for its installation, being a portable bootable USB creator we can directly run it. The .exe file is enough to process the software. Users feel very comfortable to use the services of it and it is very easy to handle. You can use Rufus to flash Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and other OS on any USB drive or Memory Card. Download
Article: How to use Rufus to create a bootable drive.
Supported platforms to run: Windows only
Key Features
- It is an open-source program with no need to spend a penny on it.
- Rufus has the features to support verity of OS and BIOS
- While booting, the user will get a chance to customize it.
- The simplicity of it makes things easy to control.
Etcher- Free & Easy to Use
It is the new baby that created a mark in the sector of bootable USB and it made a quiet impression. It can wipe out many complicating problems while doing the task of creating the bootable USB. It just shortens the distance of the road to manage the process that needed a minimum time and effort to change it. The multi-platform acceptance is it’s one of the main USP. Download
See: How to create a bootable USB flash drive using Etcher
Supported Platforms to run: Windows, Linux, macOS
Etcher Features
- Etcher is very handy to implement.
- It has the feature of multi-platform support.
- Open-source access can make the day for you.
- It is very much new in the market so you can try this if you are looking for something new.
Universal USB Installer
This is another best bootable USB creator app with which users are familiar and many people use it when it comes to creating a bootable USB. Apart from a USB bootable drive, it is also can be used for making other drives like a rescue drive or security drive and many more. The drop-down menu option is one of the main attributes in this software that we can use to choose an OS, even downloading of the same is possible from its interface, however, it makes difficulty level less for the consumers. Just like Rufus, you can also use it flash various Linux and Windows OS. Download
Supported Platforms to run: Windows only
Key features
• It is most suitable for the users of Linux.
• It will support any OS.
• For Linux users, it will give the option to persistent storage that can be handled to view settings or backups.
• It can check bad blocks
• The customization option is available there.
• It will support any OS.
• For Linux users, it will give the option to persistent storage that can be handled to view settings or backups.
• It can check bad blocks
• The customization option is available there.
Windows DVD/USB Tool
Windows DVD/USB Tool, the name is speaking clearly what it does and where it does. If you want to install OS for windows then the official tool of Microsoft is here to create a bootable USB. The functionality and operation are very friendly and you do not have to use your brain too much while working with this app. The burning process is next to nothing in terms of effort. It is just a one-click job done way after mounting the pen drive with your system. Apart from USB, it can also be used to create bootable CD/DVD drive od Windows 10/8/7/Vista. The thing to be noted, it can’t be used for Linux or other operating systems. Download.
See: How to create Bootable USB from ISO on Windows 10?
Supported Platform: Windows only
Key elements
- The first thing you should remember that it is windows only. Thus, only works on windows.
- The customization option is limited in the app.
- It does not check for any bad block in the USB drive.
RMPrepUSB
RMPrepUSB is one of the most customizable software for creating a USB bootloader. And because of the vast customizable feature, it is not easy to use for everyone apart from the people or professionals who have a good knowledge of it and know how to use it. So I strongly recommend avoiding it would be the best option for the people who do not have proper knowledge in that particular case. You can use it to convert the USB into a multiple USB bootable platform. The high customization option is very tricky and hard to learn but it also gives it some uniqueness to customize many of the things while using it. RMPrepUSB can be used to create both Linux and Windows bootable USB drives. Download
Supported Platforms to run: Windows only
Software Good For Mac Making Image To Usb Free
Key features
- It can be used from the .exe that we can download for free.
- The software supports different OS channels
- The highly customizable option is available while creating the bootloader.
- Users have the advantage to use the QEMU Emulator to boot it quickly.
Choose wisely
I would find many more apps to create a USB bootable device. I listed the best 5 option to select consisting 4 popular apps and 1 (Etcher) horse in the market that is quite good in my knowledge. Nearly every person who uses a computer or laptop would need software like them to install an OS. We are just helping them to sort things out to save some time and energy.
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Creating a full Windows backup by imaging using the built it Windows Imaging Tool, Acronis TrueImage, EaseUS Todo Backup and Macrium Reflect etc is pretty common for more advanced computer users, but it’s recommended for all users to keep backups in case of crashes or hardware failures. When your system is corrupted and unable to boot, all you need to do is just boot up the computer with the imaging software’s rescue media, locate the image and it will restore your system back to the time when you created the image.
Imaging is different from just backing up your files or selected folders because a complete image is created for the whole hard drive or partition and its structure, not just the files or folders. The problem with some imaging software is it doesn’t allow the creating of images for external devices such a USB flash drive, digital camera or MP3 player, or perhaps you prefer not to install a full software package just to back up a small flash drive.
Although the space on USB Flash drives and memory cards is not as big as computer hard drives, it’s still nice to create a full backup and then save the drive contents as a single image file. For someone with only 1 flash drive, it’s useful to have full image backups so you can swap between them when required. Here are 4 free tools which you can use to create images of USB memory sticks, memory cards and MP3 players, then restore them when you need to.1. PassMark ImageUSB
ImageUSB is by PassMark software who make well known shareware tools such as Performance Test and BurnInTest. This little tool is free and portable with a few very handy features such as being able to read and create images from more than one USB flash drive at once, and also write an image back onto more than a single flash drive in one go.
Everything is well laid out into a series of steps and you simply select the USB drive(s) to work on, and then choose whether to write to the selected drive or create an image from it (ImageUSB refers to a USB flash drive as a UFD). Then browse for the backed up file or type in a new name and press the button in step 4 to start the process. You can verify a newly created image or the contents of a written USB drive by ticking the “Post Image Verification” box although this will increase completion time.
Backup images are created as non compressed .BIN files. ImageUSB can write both the .BIN files and also ISO images onto USB although writing an ISO file can be troublesome and you might not be able to read the drive contents properly because of the CDFS/UDF file systems used by ISO images. A log file will be created in the same folder for each BIN image which includes MD5/SHA1 check sums for the file and any verification results. Works on windows XP and above.
Download PassMark ImageUSB
2. Roadkil’s DiskImage
This is a very simple and easy to use tool, but has something you need to be aware of which is it will list all physical drives and volumes not just the USB storage devices. You need to select the correct drive carefully and DiskImage will also start on the Write Image tab so to read a USB device you need to click on the Store Image tab.
Usage is easy and you simply choose the drive, browse where to put the new file and give it a name, then click the Start button. The whole device will be backed up uncompressed to the IMG file format and the file can then be viewed or files extracted by tools such as 7-Zip or UltraISO etc. Writing the image back out is simply a case of selecting the drive to write to and locating the IMG file. DiskImage is a tiny portable executable of only around 70KB (a setup installer is available) and works on anything from Windows 98 to Windows 8.
Download Roadkil’s DiskImage
3. USB Image Tool
USB Image Tool is a portable program that can create full images of USB memory sticks, MP3 players and any other storage devices that are mounted as USB drives. The program has a drop down option to let you select between taking an image of the whole USB drive or just the first volume on the device, useful if you have more than a single partition on your USB drive although the boot sector will not get saved in Volume mode.
All you have to do is select the USB drive, click backup and choose the file name and save folder. USB Image Tool backs up drives to a non-compressed IMG file by default. To compress an image file, click the “Save as type” drop down when asked where to save the file, and extra options of saving as Zip compressed (.IMZ) or GZip compressed (.IMG.GZ) files are available. Obviously this might take a bit longer but could reduce the size of a large image file by a few Gigabyes depending on the data on the drive.
There’s also a Favorites tab where you can keep IMG file locations stored for quick access and some options are available such as creating an MD5 check sum with the backup file, showing non-removable devices and defining a naming structure for the backup files. The .NET Framework 3.5 is required so XP and Vista will need it installed. For more advanced usage like creating one click shortcuts and scripts, a command line usbitcmd.exe is included. Works on Windows XP and above.
Download USB Image Tool
4. RMPrepUSB
If you want a more advanced tool with several other functions besides being able to backup your USB device, then RMPrepUSB could be a useful tool. In addition to creating a full image backup of a drive, it can also install bootloaders and various operating systems onto USB, test a device’s write speeds, wipe a drive and run checks to see if a USB flash drive is the correct capacity and not fake.
The only options you need are the Image Tools in the middle of the main interface to make and restore USB image files. “Drive -> File” will make the backup file and there are some advanced options available after selecting the new file’s name. These are choosing the start sector, partition or size amount to skip, and the amount of data, partition or MBR to copy. You can just press enter each time to choose the defaults of everything on the USB drive being copied if they’re acceptable.
Writing an image file back to a drive accepts a number of file formats although not all of them will be compatible with writing to USB flash drive or memory card etc. They include standard .BIN, .IMG and .IMZ files, and also Zip and 7-Zip archives. Interestingly, it also supports virtual hard disk files such as .VDI and .VHD used by software like VirtalBox and Virtual PC although success writing to USB will be limited. RMPrepUSB has installer and portable versions and works on Windows XP and above.
Download RMPrepUSB
Note: These imaging tools will create a backup file that is usually the exact size of your USB device because a sector by sector copy is made of the whole drive which includes empty or unused sectors, not just the visible files and folders. Therefore, backing up a 16GB flash drive will read the whole device and create around a 14GB uncompressed image file, even if the drive has very little data on it.
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@Maxime: are you using backup or clone? Because clone asks for a drive as target (which I am not interested to), not creating an image, so I guess backup. As backup I see Disk or Partition backup seem to answer the question, but both ask to buy a license. AOMEI Backupper Standard, labelled as Free, but is it really free?
ReplyI’ve just installed AOMEI Backupper Standard and it doesn’t ask to buy a license for a disk or partition backup. It’s possible you may be trying to use a Pro feature somewhere while using the backup option. Not 100% sure of that, just a guess.
ReplyPassMark ImageUSB make ISO , why do you say it can be done it has only save as .bin NOT iso
ReplyRead the article again, it says you can create a bin file from usb or write a bin/iso onto USB. Where does it say you can create iso files?
ReplyYou can delete .bin and write .iso manually. It will work.
ReplyI can delete any file extension and write in another file extension. Does that change the actual file?
Nope.
ReplyThese tools are indeed very interesting. My specific need is to copy the folders and files on a USB flash memory stick, where one folder is specifically for “shortcuts”, i.e. hyperlinks to various folders, which works as a kind of table of contents. Everything else that I need to back up works using copy and paste, but not the hyperlinks, which link to the old drive and not the new drive. Is there a solution to this, other than imaging? I mean is there a solution that does not tie up so much empty disk space? If not, then I will work with the limitations of imaging.
ReplyI did not like any of these flash drive imaging utilities as they only save the complete flash drive image which I do not like as they all create a very large full drive image regardless how small data you have on your flash drive.
Let me explain, if I have a large 256 GB flash drive and I only have a 10 GB data on this drive, all of the above mentioned programs will save the full and complete 256 GB image instead of just the 10 GB data, a complete waste of unnecessary space as they create a very large backup image file.
Unfortunately the popular Macrium Reflect imaging program does not recognize flash drives so this program will not work.
Luckily, the latest Acronis True Image 2018 build 12510 will successfully backup only the 10 GB data image and this backup image file will be much smaller than taking the full (unnecessary) 256 GB flash drive like all the above listed programs do.
Acronis TI is not free but it is the only one I found to do exactly what I want and need.
If you do know of another program that will do exactly what Acronis TI can do and is FREE then please share it here with us all.
Thank you
ReplyLet me explain, if I have a large 256 GB flash drive and I only have a 10 GB data on this drive, all of the above mentioned programs will save the full and complete 256 GB image instead of just the 10 GB data, a complete waste of unnecessary space as they create a very large backup image file.
Unfortunately the popular Macrium Reflect imaging program does not recognize flash drives so this program will not work.
Luckily, the latest Acronis True Image 2018 build 12510 will successfully backup only the 10 GB data image and this backup image file will be much smaller than taking the full (unnecessary) 256 GB flash drive like all the above listed programs do.
Acronis TI is not free but it is the only one I found to do exactly what I want and need.
If you do know of another program that will do exactly what Acronis TI can do and is FREE then please share it here with us all.
Thank you
Software Good For Mac Making Image To Usb Drive
Easeus ToDo Backup Free is free and can do the same: an image of the only>
Failed to backup linux SD card, not even when doing sector by secotr copy, still fails ( all other programs handle that). Lots of popups asking to buy all the time… feel like scam program.
Stay away I say.
ReplyExperienced users will also achieve a MUCH smaller image by first deleting large or excess files: (ALL of these will be regenerated upon next BOOT)
Pagefile.sys
c:windowsprefetch
c:windowstemp
Other TEMP folders
Other TEMPORARY folders
Useless .BAK; .TMP; .OLD files
OFFLINE WEB PAGES
SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION
INSTALLER
OFFLINE WEB PAGES
SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION
ReplyPagefile.sys
c:windowsprefetch
c:windowstemp
Other TEMP folders
Other TEMPORARY folders
Useless .BAK; .TMP; .OLD files
OFFLINE WEB PAGES
SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION
INSTALLER
OFFLINE WEB PAGES
SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION
I know your comment is now 2 years old, but I hope my suggestion will be helpful to those finding this article –
Today (June 2020), AOMEI Backupper just does that on Windows, for free.
Today (June 2020), AOMEI Backupper just does that on Windows, for free.
I succeeded in backuping a 32 GB flash disk into a 586 MB image, and another 32 GB flash disk to a 6.55 GB image.
The first flash disk was a Dell Restore & Recovery USB media, made with Dell Direct Key Creator (used to restore Dell machines to their factory state).
The second one was a standard Windows 10 Installation disk, made with Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.
The first flash disk was a Dell Restore & Recovery USB media, made with Dell Direct Key Creator (used to restore Dell machines to their factory state).
The second one was a standard Windows 10 Installation disk, made with Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.
Each time, I made the backup image, formatted the drive, and restored the image back to the same drive. Everything was OK, and all restored disks were both bootable and working.
I did not test any other schemas, such as restoring on a smaller or different drive.
I did not test any other schemas, such as restoring on a smaller or different drive.
The free (Standard) version of AOMEI Backupper is said to be slower than the paid version, but my 32 GB stick (USB 2.0) was backuped quite quickly, as well as my USB 3.0 32 GB stick (Patriot Memory Supersonic). The Patriot (containing the Windows 10 image) was backuped in 1 minute, and restored in two minutes.
On Linux, you could use the classic dd command with the conv=sparse option.
ReplyFlash drives have gotten so large and cheap that it is common to have a little 500 MB bootable image on a 32 GB flash drive. Since these tools make uncompressed image files, imaging such a flash drive can waste a LOT of space. So the obvious solution is to compress the image files.
What tool(s) would you recommend for that? Which tools happily work with such enormous files, and which are fast enough to not be overly painful to use?
One other thought: to make an image file which is maximally compressible, you should first zero-out the free-space on your flash drive, before making the image file. The easiest way to do that is with Mark Russinovich’s SDelete tool.
For example, if your flash drive is F: then do this from an administrator-level command prompt:
sdelete64 -z f:
You can download SDelete (which includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) here:
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete
Replydocs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete
Great tip, thanks!
I’ve been looking for a way to make smaller images. I also suspect that the longer way(without the zeroing part) causes much more wear and tear on the flash drive’s memory.
ReplyI’ve been looking for a way to make smaller images. I also suspect that the longer way(without the zeroing part) causes much more wear and tear on the flash drive’s memory.
Dave,
Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the info.
I know this is old but hopefully you are still tracking it. It is not working for me. I am probably missing something. I ran sdelete prior to PassMark ImageUSB as indicated, but still got an image file as big as the flash drive total size. This is the process I am using. Could you please help?
1- run sdelete on the flash drive
2- create image with PassMark ImageUSB
1- run sdelete on the flash drive
2- create image with PassMark ImageUSB
thanks,
ReplyHi All, Thanks RAY for another wonderful article, System Image of USB drives was beyond my thinking ! I tried the robust option : USB Image Tool ( RMPrepUSB for future ) but it takes considerable time to image even a 8gb pendrive on a quite speedy system ! I would like to ask what will be the Best + Fast + Versatile way to image a single vs multiple partitioned USB drive ? In the meantime i would like to explore the installed Macrium Reflect Free for the purpose ! Thanks & Regards.
ReplyAs always, we are accustomed to your good articles. Thank you.
ReplyThank u very much. But as u said the image files are as big as the flash drives no matter how much data they contain. Is there any app that will create image files sizing according to the size of the contents in the flash drive?
ReplyWhich one (if any) can copy a GPT partitionned USB key ?
I failed with ImageUSB.
ReplyI failed with ImageUSB.
I would think options 3 or 4 can do that as they copy the whole drive starting from sector 0.
ReplyReally useful as usual,
many thanks
Replymany thanks
marvelous ray!
ReplyAnother great tool. Thanks!
ReplyThanks Raymond.
Reply