/rufus

The Reliable USB Formatting Utility

Primary LanguageCGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

Rufus: The Reliable USB Formatting Utility

Rufus logo

Features

  • Format USB and Virtual HD drives to FAT/FAT32/NTFS/UDF/exFAT/ReFS
  • Create DOS bootable USB drives, using FreeDOS or MS-DOS
  • Create BIOS or UEFI bootable drives, including UEFI bootable NTFS
  • Create bootable drives from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, etc.)
  • Create bootable drives from bootable disk images, including compressed ones
  • Create Windows To Go drives
  • Twice as fast as Microsoft's USB/DVD tool or UNetbootin, on ISO -> USB creation (1)
  • Perform bad blocks checks, including detection of "fake" flash drives
  • Modern and familiar UI, with more than 35 languages natively supported
  • Small footprint. No installation required.
  • Portable
  • 100% Free Software (GPL v3)

Compilation

Use either Visual Studio 2013, WDK 7.1 (Windows Driver Kit) or MinGW and then invoke the .sln, wdk_build.cmd or configure/make respectively.

Visual Studio

Note that, since Rufus is an OSI compliant Open Source project, you are entitled to download and use the freely available [Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition] (http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community-vs) to build, run or develop for Rufus. As per the Visual Studio Community Edition license this applies regardless of whether you are an individual or a corporate user. For details, see this.

Additional information

Rufus provides extensive information about what it is doing, either through its easily accessible log, or through the Windows debug facility.

Enhancements/Bugs

Please use the GitHub issue tracker for reporting problems or suggesting new features.

(1) Tests carried out with a 16 GB USB 3.0 ADATA pen drive on a Core 2 duo/4 GB RAM platform running Windows 7 x64. ISO: en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_618240.iso

Name of tool Version Time
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool v1.0.30 8 mins 10s
UNetbootin v1.1.1.1 6 mins 20s
Rufus v1.1.0 3 mins 25s