Rufus-create A Bootable Usb

[Lore Dosher]

Iam attempting to use Rufus to make a USB flash drive bootable. However, try as I might, my system refuses to boot from it, although it once did (see below). I have made sure legacy boot mode is enabled in my BIOS, turned off Secure Boot and Fast Boot, and have tried every USB port on the machine. I am assuming the BIOS is accessing the flash drive, as the light on the drive flashes when I select the "boot from USB" option. This is a Dell, and I'm using its F12 boot select menu.

What does Rufus do when one selects the FreeDOS option? (Documentation doesn't seem to exist on the Rufus site for how to use this option). When choosing FreeDOS in Rufus, do you also need to specify a custom file you want to burn to the drive or is FreeDOS by itself enough (bootable media newb here)? I did find a previous post from the developer that says Rufus creates a "blank" version of FreeDOS. From what I can see, normally FreeDOS comes as an installer, so is that to say that in Rufus, a "blank" version is also a bootable version? (I assume that's the whole point of Rufus). However, I have seen other instructions (here and here) that advise using Rufus to format the drive, then manually copy files from a FreeDOS installation onto it, but if this is the case, why use Rufus in the first place? Couldn't one simply format the drive with your OS, then move the FreeDOS files to it, or is there something Rufus does to make the drive bootable that doesn't have to do with the files it puts on it?

Side note that might be relevant: I am trying to boot TO FreeDOS in order to run a DOS-based program I need. When this worked previously, I believe it was because the program I'm trying to run also came with what appeared to be DOS files (autoexec.bat, command.com, himem.sys, etc.), but I did something or copied some combination of them then that I'm unable to replicate now. Simply copying those files over, and even using Rufus to burn them to the flash drive isn't working.

Partition a drive using the MBR partition scheme, create a single FAT MBR partition, format that partition, install a FreeDOS bootloader in the MBR bootloader and copy the FreeDOS base files (KERNEL.SYS, COMMAND.COM and locale data) to the FAT partition.

You can actually find what Rufus does by looking at the Rufus log (by clicking the small Log button left of the START button), as it contains extensive information about what Rufus creates on the drive.

Also Rufus does attempt to detect your locale and make sure that the DOS version you install will use the same locale, so that you don't end up with the default US keyboard and locale if, say, you are running in a French environment and have a French keyboard.

Note however that there might be some small differences between how FreeDOS handles things like autoexec.bat and himem.sys compared to what MS-DOS does, so you may have to manually figure out how to alter the drive content so that it works the same with FreeDOS as it does with MS-DOS (which it should eventually do if you can sort the configuration).

I realized that the SATA system on my machine had somehow been set to RAID mode instead of AHCI mode, probably because of the multiple times I had gone to the custom boot screen in trying to boot. At some point I may have selected this without realizing it (on some Dell systems, the custom boot screen will make changes to BIOS options that persist).

I reset the BIOS to defaults in case I had made any other changes, and the system booted from the Rufus-made USB drive. Note though that I choose to option to burn an img file containing FreeDOS to the drive with Rufus, but I didn't use Rufus' own FreeDOS template.

I'm trying to create a bootable USB drive using Rufus. My USB drive is a 64GB Sandisk that has around 40GB of files that I cannot transfer elsewhere. Can I somehow create a bootable USB using only the remaining free space and not have to delete the other files on it?

When installing windows 10 in a Uefi supported Motherboard using Rufus.I configured it to have a GPT partition & a Fat 32 boot file system.The boot file system depends on the size of either the install.esd or install.wim file.The install.wim file size is larger.

For MBR partitioned disk.NTFS boot file system is selected

Fat 32 maximum file size limit is 4GB while NTFS support more than 4GB.

If install.wim is more than 4GB.Rufus require user to select NTFS boot file system.

Question >

1.When using Rufus to create a Linux Mint bootable Usb to install Linux mint on an MBR partitioned disk(Legacy Bios motherboard).,can I select NTFS as boot file system?

2.Does Linux Mint OS has a install.wim file where one can check the size?

3.Do I need to enable Persistence & does persistence affect which boot file system to use?

According to Rufus Manual,for UEFI motherboard,select GPT partition & Fat32 boot file system.Only change to NTFS if install .wim is above 4GB.

& for Legacy Bios motherboard .select MBR partition & NTFS file system

I am just wondering if that guideline is also correct & valid when installing Linux Mint on a MBR partitioned disk,that is setting the file system to NTFS in Rufus.

And you replied,just leave it at default Fat32,correct?

Hi, this post is just a information for people like me, that fall into the same trap when trying to create an bootable usb stick of a HPE Service Pack for ProLiant with rufus and get an error like "Unable to mount the file system [cdrom]" at boot. Because there are a set of information i collected, i want to share this with others.

Problem:

First thing, why you are trying to make a bootable usb stick, may because you have a slow internet connection for update inside intelligent provisioning or the downloads in intelligent provisioning fail. So now you picked up a mess when:

You try to write a usb flash drive with the iso image of HPE ProLiant Service Pack - SPP AND you decide to write the image with Rufus (my version is 3.4 with standard settings) because, as like me, you know Rufus as one of the fastest an simplest usb tools. Thereforce it was your first choice. However afterwards, your ProLiant Server won't boot from the stick or he does not recognize it as bootable, or you getting mount errors.

Some people say:

Rufus finds two config files, one at /usb/isolinux.cfg and another at /system/isolinux.cfg. It picks the one at /usb but this is the wrong one, and points to it at \syslinux.cfg. So you have to edit \syslinux.cfg and change it to:

In my tests, this was true for usb sticks greater 32GB. Without the syslinux.cfg corrections the usb stick was not recognized at boot time (F11). But it had no impact on sticks with or below 32GB. There it makes no difference which of the two isolinux.cfg the syslinux.cfg file points to. They always where recognized and booting. But:

I did my best, but at this point i have to say, there's no "rufus-way" to get the "very special" HP SPP ISO working. At the end, the syslinux version used inside the ISO and that used by rufus is not compatible. At least i did'nt find it get working.

I've run to this problem and tried everything on a ML150 G9, I used Ventoy and bang! It works every time with any kind of ISO. After you installed it on the USB Stick, you just need to drop the ISOs inside of it.

i did not know ventoy before. I gave it a try and played arround with that tool. Very nice!

Such a simple way for running iso bootable things. I tried with Service Pack Proliant and a lot of other iso's i have. All boot up wonderful. Thank you for that nice tool tip

If you change the top syslinux.cfg as described above, and then change "cdrom" to "usb" in system/isolinux.cfg and in boot/grub/grub.cfg, it will work. At least in BIOS mode which is good enough for SPP. There are more files to change for EFI /UEFI mode.

The usbkey.exe file is located in \usb\usbkey folder of the SPP 2020.03.2 package. When using this tool to create a bootable USB SPP 2020.03.2, the usbkey will not function properly and the server will boot to a 'grub>' prompt.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Travis Boylls. Travis Boylls is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Travis has experience writing technology-related articles, providing software customer service, and in graphic design. He specializes in Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux platforms. He studied graphic design at Pikes Peak Community College.

This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources.

This article has been viewed 240,679 times.

Learn more...

Rufus is a Windows program that allows you to create a bootable USB drive from an ISO file. You can use Rufus to create an installation drive used to install another operating system, such as Linux or Windows. You can also use it to create an installation disk for games and applications. This wikiHow article teaches you to create a bootable USB drive using Rufus.

Creating a bootable USB drive with Linux is a great way to install a new operating system or run a live Linux distribution. Rufus is a free and open-source utility that can help you create bootable USB drives with ease. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps to create a bootable USB drive with Linux using Rufus.

Under the Partition scheme option, select MBR if your computer uses BIOS or GPT if it uses UEFI. Then, under the File system option, select FAT32 or NTFS, depending on the Linux distribution you are using (Rufus usually automatically selects the correct file system). Lastly, leave the Cluster size at its default setting.

Insert the USB drive into the target computer and switch on. You BIOS/UEFI should automatically detect and run the installation from the USB drive. If you already have another operating system installed and want to overwrite it, reboot and press the boot menu key (usually the F12, Esc, or Del keys).

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