But that page only includes the latest official release. That option works fine when you download the Windows 10 installer files using the official Windows 10 Download page, because those files are packaged specifically for use on USB flash drives. Normally, that's a simple process: First, use the Recovery Media Creator to create a bootable USB flash drive then double-click the Windows 10 v2004 ISO file in File Explorer to mount it as a virtual drive and drag the contents of the mounted drive to the bootable USB flash drive.

Like many IT pros with a Visual Studio (formerly MSDN) subscription, I downloaded the ISO file yesterday and set about to copy it to a bootable USB flash drive. Microsoft has made Windows 10 version 2004 available to the developer community, a couple weeks ahead of its release to the general public. This will ensure your USB thumb drive is working properly which may be preventing a successful completion.White House: Brace for potential Russian cyberattacksĤ1 impressive questions to ask in a job interview Expand 'Show advanced format options' under Format options in Rufus and check the option to 'Check device for bad blocks'. Pro Tip: If you are having issues creating your bootable USB thumb drive. The process may take several minutes depending on the speed of your USB thumb drive. Click OK on the confirmation screen to begin creating your bootable USB drive. The Format Options can usually be left as is, hit Start when you are ready. Once selected, just hit Open.įor image option, partition scheme and target system, I suggest using the defaults which are 'Standard Windows Installation', GPT Partition Scheme and UEFI target system. If you need to download a Windows 10 ISO file, check out this article. Next, click Select and navigate to your ISO file you want to use. To be safe, I typically use a 16GB thumb drive by Transcend.īy default, Rufus will only display removable USB drives but make sure the correct device is selected under Drive Properties. Make sure that your USB thumb drive is larger than the ISO file downloaded. Once installed, plug in your USB thumb drive and then start up Rufus. Alternatively you can download directly from the Github repository here. To get started, head over to and download Rufus 3.12 or later. This is very helpful when performing a clean install of the Windows 10 20H2 October update ISO.

But recently I switched to using a new tool called Rufus that is both reliable at successfully creating bootable media and automating many steps to quickly get the job done so you can perform a clean install. I've written about a few methods over the years to create a bootable USB flash drive from a Windows 10 ISO file.

Windows iso to usb flash