Rufus

Most people use CD and DVD discs to install an operating system into their computers, no matter if we are talking about Windows, Linux or Mac. But there are times when installing an operating system from an optical media is just not possible, for example when we are talking about laptops or tablets which don't have an optical device. In this situation, it would be a good idea to install the desired operating system from a USB memory stick. Thus, you will also be able to install it much faster than using an optical disc, as the reading speed for USB flash devices is extremely high.

The problem is how to convert a regular disc image into a bootable USB memory stick. This is where Rufus comes in. This Windows application allows you to make any USB memory stick completely bootable and allows you to copy any disc image to it, no matter how large it is.

The program does not need installing and it's enough to run the executable downloaded from the Internet. After launching the application, the user will first need to select the USB memory device which he would like to make bootable. After completing this step, one should select the ISO disc image that will be copied onto the memory stick. Unfortunately, Rufus only supports ISO files and cannot copy data stored on physical discs without creating an image first.

These settings are all that's required to make the USB memory stick bootable. All that's left to do is to configure the computer's BIOS to accept booting from USB memory devices.