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Ultraiso portable bootable flash drive. Ways to create a bootable USB flash drive image

The first and most important stage When starting to work with a new computer, without which further steps will be impossible, this is, of course, installing the operating system. We will work with the operating system from Microsoft – Windows. Previously, everything was simple - you bought or made a disk with Windows yourself, inserted it into the drive, and it went away. However, over time, disks, due to their inconvenience, size and volume, began to fade into the background and by 2018 they had almost completely disappeared from people’s lives. Also, the disk drives gradually began to disappear from computers; stationary stations were less affected; the main blow fell on laptops. Nowadays there are a minimum of models in which a disk drive can be found, and most often it is budget solutions. Inconvenient and bulky disks have been replaced by flash drives or simply flash drives. They are smaller, they have more volume, they are more convenient in everything.

Just like disks before, flash drives are now used as a storage device when installing an operating system, by creating a “Bootable flash drive.” To create it you need to use one of several programs. One of them, and probably the most popular, is UltraIso.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive from an image

So, let's consider the first option of creating bootable flash drive through

UltraIso and operating system image. For this, we need:

  1. Operating system image.
  2. Flash drive.

Requirements for a flash drive: capacity from eight gigabytes, four gigabytes may be enough, but not in all cases, so once again it’s better to play it safe and simplify your life in the future. The flash drive must be empty, since when UltraIso is running, all data will be erased in any case. The flash drive must have the NTFC file system; UltraIso will not work with others.
Having in free access all of the above, you need to run UltraIso, select “File” in the menu that opens and then “Open” in the window that appears. Then you need to specify the location of the OS image file on the disk and click “Open” again. The screen will show the files located inside the operating system image, but for the average user they still mean nothing, so you can close the window with peace of mind.
The next step is to go to the main menu of the program and select the “Boot” option, after which the user will be able to select the “Record” function image of a tough disk." There may be differences in translation for Russian localization, but general meaning phrases and actions must match. Next, you will need to select a drive that will be turned into a boot drive, in our case it is a flash drive. In the same window, it (the flash drive) can be formatted in advance. The default recording method is USB-HDD+, and you should leave it as it is optimal.

Click on the “Record” button...

When you select these functions, a warning will appear on the screen about full formatting (deleting all data) from specified drive, in our case it is a flash drive, even if it has already been formatted by you in advance. It is for this reason that the flash drive should be empty and not contain important data. After the user agrees to create a bootable USB flash drive, you will have to wait a few more minutes, usually up to ten. And now, after the program has finished running, you will receive a completely ready flash drive for use and installation of the operating system on another device.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive using a DVD disc

It often happens that the user may have a disk with Windows in his hands that needs to be installed on a laptop that does not have a disk drive. However, there is a desktop PC that already has a disk drive. And again UltraIso comes to the rescue, because using it you can create a bootable USB flash drive directly from the disk. And so to create it using a DVD you need almost the same as for previous method. Namely:

  1. DVD with operating system.
  2. UltraIso installed on your computer.
  3. A flash drive with requirements similar to those for a flash drive in the first option.

First of all, launch the program and select “File” again. But this time we next select the function not just “Open”, but “Open CD/DVD”, after which the user is only required to provide the path to the drive with the disc containing the operating system inserted into it.

After which the actions are repeated with the first method one to one. We will again need to select the “Boot” function, after which we will need to select “Burn image hard drive" Then we agree again full formatting flash drive and click “Burn”. After a short time, we receive a flash drive ready for use.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive without images

The last method, although very rarely used, due to its non-typical nature, also has a place. Sometimes it happens that the user has neither a DVD with the operating system nor the usual ISO image, but there is a distribution kit that has everything necessary files For Windows installations. In this situation, you need to use UltraIso again. After all, with the help of it it is possible to make a bootable USB flash drive from regular files. And again you will need an empty flash drive of eight gigabytes.

Launch UltraIso, as always, select “File” and click on “New”. Then we click on “Bootable CD/DVD image” and the user will be prompted to select a download file. This is the "bootfix.bin" file, which is located in the "boot" folder (for Windows 7 and above). After this, you need to transfer the data from the folder with the operating system distribution to an empty field. Sometimes it happens that at this stage the red indicator “ New look crowded". In this case, you need to click on it and select the size of 4.7 gigabytes (volume equal to DVD disc). Further actions Completely repeat the steps in the first two cases. Having done them, you will need to wait a few minutes, and the bootable flash drive is ready.

At this point, the main methods of creating a bootable flash drive via UltraIso have exhausted themselves. There are also other ways, but usually these should be enough.

Video

In some cases, users need to write a file in ISO format to a flash drive. In general, this is a disk image format that is recorded on regular DVD discs. But in some cases you have to write data in this format to a USB drive. And then you have to use some unusual methods, which we will talk about later.

Typically, operating system images are stored in ISO format. And the flash drive on which this very image is stored is called bootable. The OS is then installed from there. Exist special programs, which allow you to create boot drive. You can read more about this in our lesson.

But in in this case we are dealing with a different situation when the ISO format is not stored operating system, and some other information. Then you have to use the same programs as in the lesson above, but with some adjustments, or even other utilities. Let's look at three ways to complete the task.

Method 1: UltraISO

This program is most often used to work with ISO. And to burn the image to removable storage media, follow these simple instructions:


As you can see, the whole difference between the process of transferring an ISO image to a disk and to a flash drive with using UltraISO is that different media are indicated.

Method 2: ISO to USB

ISO to USB is a unique, specialized utility that performs one single task. It consists of recording images on removable media information. At the same time, her capabilities within the framework of performing this task are quite wide. This way the user has the opportunity to specify a new drive name and format it to a different file system.

Several times readers have asked about how you can create an image of a bootable flash drive, make an ISO image from it for subsequent recording on another flash drive or disk. This instruction is about creating such images, not only in ISO format, but also in other formats that represent full copy USB storage(including empty space on it).

First of all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that you can create an image of a bootable flash drive and there are many tools for this, but usually this is not an ISO image. The reason for this is that ISO image files are images of CDs (but not any other drives) on which data is written in a certain way (although an ISO image can be written to a flash drive). So there is no "USB to ISO" type program or simple way creating an ISO image from any bootable USB flash drive and in most cases creating an IMG, IMA or BIN image. However, the option is how to create boot image ISO from the bootable flash drive is available, and it will be described first below.

Flash drive image using UltraISO

UltraISO is a very popular program in our latitudes for working with disk images, creating and burning them. Among other things, using UltraISO you can make an image of a flash drive, and there are two ways to do this. In the first method, we will create an ISO image from a bootable USB flash drive.

In UltraISO with a connected flash drive, drag the entire USB drive onto the window with a list of files (empty immediately after launch).

Confirm copying all files.

In the program menu, open the “Boot” item and click "Extract boot data from floppy/hard drive" and save the download file to your computer.

Then in the same section of the menu select "Load download file" and download the previously extracted download file.

The second way you can create full image USB flash drives, but already in the format ima, which is a byte-by-byte copy of the entire drive (i.e. the image is even empty flash drive 16 GB will take up all these 16 GB) is somewhat simpler.

In the “Self-loading” menu, select “Create a hard disk image” and follow the instructions (you just need to select the flash drive from which the image is taken and indicate the location where it will be saved). In the future, to burn the flash drive image created in this way, use the “Burn hard disk image” item in UltraISO.

Creating a full flash drive image using the USB Image Tool

The first, easiest way to create an image of a flash drive (not only bootable, but any other) is to use the free USB program Image Tool.

After launching the program, on the left side you will see a list of connected USB drives. There is a switch above it: “ Device Mode" and "Partition Mode". The second point makes sense to use only when your drive has several partitions and you need to create an image of one of them.

After selecting the flash drive, just click the “Backup” button and indicate where to save the image in IMG format. Upon completion, you will receive a complete copy of your flash drive in this format. In the future, in order to write this image to a flash drive, you can use the same program: click “Restore” and indicate from which image it should be restored.

Note: this method is suitable if you need to make an image of some flash drive you have in order to someday restore the same flash drive in previous state. It may not be possible to write an image to another drive, even of exactly the same size, i.e. it's a kind of backup.

You can download the USB Image Tool from the official website http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/download/

Creating a flash drive image in PassMark ImageUSB

Another simple one free program, which does not require installation on a computer and allows you to easily create a complete USB image drive (in .bin format) and, if necessary, write it again to a flash drive - imageUSB by PassMark Software.

To create a flash drive image in the program, follow these steps:

  1. Select the desired drive.
  2. Select Create image from USB drive
  3. Select a location to save the flash drive image
  4. Click the Create button.

In the future, to write the previously created image to a flash drive, use the Write image to USB drive item. Moreover, for writing images to a flash drive, the program supports not only the .bin format, but also regular ISO images.

You can download imageUSB from official page http://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html

How to create an ISO image of a flash drive in ImgBurn

Attention: Recently, the ImgBurn program described below may contain various additional unwanted programs. I do not recommend this option; it was described earlier when the program was clean.

In general, if necessary, you can make an ISO image of a bootable flash drive. True, depending on what exactly is on the USB, the process may not be as simple as it was in the previous paragraph. One way is to use a free ImgBurn program, which can be downloaded from the official website http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

After launching the program, click “Create Image File from Files/Folders”, and in the next window, click the folder icon under the “plus”, select the source flash drive as the folder to use.

Image of a bootable flash drive in ImgBurn

But that's not all. The next step is to open the Advanced tab, and in it - Bootable Disk. This is where manipulations need to be made so that the future ISO image becomes bootable. Main point here - Boot Image. Using the Extract Boot Image field below you can extract boot entry from a flash drive, it will be saved as a BootImage.ima file in the location where you wish. After that, in the “main item” indicate the path to this file. In some cases, this will be enough to make a bootable image from a flash drive.

If something goes wrong, the program corrects some of the errors by independently determining the type of drive. In some cases, you will have to figure out what’s what on your own: as I already said, universal solution Unfortunately, there is no way to turn any USB into ISO, except for the method described at the beginning of the article using the UltraISO program.

As sad as it may be for many, the era of CD/DVDs is slowly but surely coming to an end... Today, users are increasingly thinking about having an emergency bootable USB flash drive in case they suddenly have to reinstall the system.

And the point here is not only to pay tribute to fashion. The OS is installed faster from a flash drive than from a disk; such a flash drive can be used on a computer that does not have a CD/DVD drive (and USB is available on all modern computers), and you shouldn’t forget about ease of transfer either: a flash drive can easily fit into any pocket, unlike a disk.

1. What is needed to create a bootable USB flash drive?

1) The most important thing is a flash drive. For Windows 7, 8, you will need a flash drive with a size of at least 4 GB, preferably 8 (some images may not fit into 4 GB).

2) An image of a Windows boot disk, most often representing a file ISO format. If you have an installation disk, you can create such a file yourself. It is enough to use the program Clone CD, Alcohol 120%, UltraISO and others (see how to do this).

3) One of the programs for writing an image to a flash drive (about them we'll talk below).

Important point! If your PC (netbook, laptop) has, in addition to USB 2.0, also USB 3.0, connect the USB flash drive during installation to USB port 2.0. This applies primarily to Windows 7 (and lower) operating systems, because... These OS do not support USB 3.0! The installation attempt will end with an OS error stating that it is impossible to read data from such media. By the way, they are quite easy to recognize, USB 3.0 is shown in blue, the connectors for it are the same color.

usb 3.0 on laptop

And one more thing... Make sure your Bios supports booting from USB media. If the PC is modern, then it should definitely have this function. For example, my old home computer, purchased back in 2003. can boot from USB. How configure Bios to boot from a flash drive - .

2. Utilities for burning a bootable ISO disk to a USB flash drive

2.1 WinToFlash

I would like to focus on this utility mainly because it allows you to burn bootable flash drives with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8. Probably the most universal! You can read about other functions and capabilities on the official website. Here I would like to look at how you can create a flash drive for installing the OS.

After launching the utility, by default, the wizard starts (see screenshot below). To proceed to creating a bootable USB flash drive, click on the green checkmark in the center.

System migration process Windows files usually takes 5-10 minutes. At this time, it is better not to load your PC with unnecessary resource-intensive processes.

If the recording was successful, the wizard will notify you about this. To start the installation, you need to insert the USB flash drive and restart the computer.

One of best programs for working with ISO format images. It is possible to compress these images, create, unpack, etc. There are also recording functions boot disks and flash drives (hard drives).

This program was mentioned quite often on the site, so here I will give only a couple of links:

2.3 USB/DVD Download Tool

A lightweight utility that allows you to burn flash drives with Windows 7 and 8. The only negative, perhaps, is that when writing, it may give an error of 4 GB. The flash drive supposedly doesn't have enough space. Although there is enough space for other utilities, on the same flash drive, with the same image...

By the way, the issue of recording a bootable USB flash drive in this utility for Windows 8 was considered.

2.4 WinToBootic

Website: http://www.wintobootic.com/

Very simple utility, which will help you quickly and worry-free create a bootable USB storage device with OS Windows Vista/7/8/2008/2012. The program takes up very little space - less than 1 MB.

When I first started it required installed Net Framework 3.5, not everyone has such a package, but downloading and installing it is not a quick task...

But the process of creating bootable media is very fast and pleasant. First, insert the flash drive into the USB, then launch the utility. Now click on the green arrow and indicate the location of the image with the installation Windows disk. The program can directly record from an ISO image.

2.5 WinSetupFromUSB

A simple and main free program. With it you can quickly create bootable media. By the way, what’s interesting is that a flash drive can accommodate not only Windows OS, but also Gparted, SisLinux, built-in virtual machine and etc.

To start creating a bootable USB flash drive, run the utility. By the way, please note that there is a special add-on for the x64 version!

Once launched you only need to specify 2 things:

  1. First, indicate the flash drive on which the recording will be made. Usually, it is determined automatically. By the way, under the line with the flash drive there is a checkbox: “Auto Format” - it is recommended to check the box and not touch anything else.
  2. In the “Add USB dick” section, select the line with the required OS and check the box. Next, indicate the location on your hard drive where the image with this ISO OS is located.
  3. The last thing you do is click on the “GO” button.

By the way! The program may behave as if it is frozen while recording. In fact, most often it works, just do not touch the PC for about 10 minutes. You can also pay attention to bottom part program window: messages about the recording process appear on the left and a green bar is visible...

3. Conclusion

In this article we looked at several ways to create bootloaders. USB flash drives. A few tips when recording such flash drives:

  1. First of all, copy all the files from the media, in case you need something later. During recording, all information from the flash drive will be deleted!
  2. Do not load your computer with other processes during the recording process.
  3. Wait for success information message from the utilities with which you work with the flash drive.
  4. Disable antivirus software before creating bootable media.
  5. Don't edit setup files on the flash drive after recording it.

That's all, happy OS installation everyone!

Often when your computer breaks down you have to use a bootable flash drive. With its help you can get to the recovery partition, run command line or edit the registry even if the system itself does not start or does not respond. In this way, you can solve many startup problems and avoid reinstalling the system, and if this does not help, then the same flash drive will be useful for reinstalling the OS. So it doesn’t hurt to have a bootable flash drive at home in reserve.

Typically, bootable flash drives are made from iso image. This is a file that represents copy of optical drive. You can unpack it using conventional archivers and work with it; you can use special programs that can emulate the work optical drives and work with the file through them, there are also many applications that will allow you to write an image to another medium, and they will be discussed in this article.

Preparing a flash drive

For starters, it's worth transfer from flash drive all information, because during the recording process, all data will be deleted. If you don’t mind losing information, you can leave it on the drive; in most cases, the programs themselves will delete it during operation. You can also format the flash drive, this is required to record some images, it's worth finding out what type file system ntfs or fat32 is required, and recode the flash drive to it.

Third Party Applications

This section will list the utilities that are best used to create a bootable drive.

Ultra ISO

It is better to download the program from the official website; others may contain versions with malware or with additional files, link to the page https://www.ultraiso.com/. After downloading, you will need install file, there is nothing complicated about it, all actions are performed using the usual installation wizard. After starting the program, you should click on the file - open, and then specify the path to the downloaded image. Then, the window will appear full list files. Next you need to click on Bootstrap - Burn a hard disk image.

After which a window will open in which you should select drive, and then all you have to do is click on record and wait for the process to complete.

Rufus

It is also better to download this program from trusted sources; you can download it from the link https://rufus.akeo.ie/?locale. Unlike the previous utility, this one specializes only in creating boot and multiboot drives. IN top line you should select the drive to which recording will be made, in next point need to be asked partition scheme, which will depend on the system being installed. In the bottom block you should definitely note “ Create boot disk ", indicate the downloaded iso as the source.

The remaining parameters can be left as default.

WinSetupFromUSB

You can find the utility at http://www.winsetupfromusb.com/downloads/. The program itself is quite easy to understand and use. All you need to do is indicate the drive, check the box below it if this is the first image to be recorded, then check the box for the required system version and indicate the path to the downloaded element. Further required click ongo and wait for the process to complete.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

The official utility, which can be obtained directly from the developer’s website https://www.microsoft.com/ru-ru/store/b/home?rtc=1. The program is easy to use, in the first window you need to specify the file, in the next you need to specify the drive, and then you just have to wait for the recording.

Daemon Tools Ultra

This application has many options for working with virtual drives and disk images can be downloaded on the official website https://www.daemon-tools.cc/rus/products/dtultra. After installation, all you have to do is click on tools, then on burn image, after which you will only need to specify the flash drive, image and select recording options that you can leave with default settings.

UnetBootin

A utility for creating bootable flash drives based on Linux, you can download it at https://unetbootin.github.io/. Here you should indicate the version of the system, after which the program will download it, or the path to the image, as well as the drive on which the recording will be made.

WinToFlash

You can download the program at https://wintoflash.com/home/ru/. In the first window, which is called the transfer wizard, you need to press only on further, and in the second indicate the image file and the path to the flash drive.

Possible faults

Some utilities refuse to work without NET Framework , usually, it is installed on every computer because many applications require it to work. If the user does not have it, then latest version You can download it from the Microsoft website, but you will have to search for the rest. The problem may also be a version mismatch, 64 bit systems may refuse to write to a flash drive if the action itself is performed in a 32-bit environment. In this case, you should try using a different image or another utility.