When I was testing out the software-based firewalls recently, I downloaded the .iso files and began the hunt for a blank CD to burn them on. I finally found one and burned the .iso to disc. Upon sticking it into a spare PC and booting from the CD, it errored out and complained that the source was corrupted. Not only did it take me some time to find my dwindling stock of CD-Rs but it didn’t even work.
Normally, I recommend YUMI for building a USB drive into a powerful utility with a variety of live CDs at your fingertips but in this case I just wanted a simple conversion from a .iso to a bootable USB drive. I found a few options but liked Rufus because it was a portable app that didn’t require installation and was pretty straight-forward.
Rufus allows you to format a USB drive as a bootable drive using FreeDOS, MS-DOS, a DD image, or an ISO image. It is this last option that we are interested in. Under Format Options, change the second drop-down to ISO image and use the disc icon button next to it to browse and select your .iso file. You can then verify that you have the correct device selected and you may set your other options such as the volume label and tell the process to Start. It won’t be long before it completes and your drive is now bootable and ready to go with your .iso file.
After I created my bootable USB with the firewall iso I wanted, I booted my spare computer with the drive and it installed flawlessly. Not only did I not have to use a CD-R, waste time looking for it, and deal with it not working in the first place but building the bootable drive was significantly faster anyways. I will be keeping Rufus around with my other portable apps.
You can download Rufus from https://rufus.akeo.ie/
Version tested: 1.4.12.535