So, before we start enlisting our choices, let’s just learn about some common terms related to Booting.

Bootloader Options: This bootloader is responsible for loading the Operating System. Sometimes, you have a choice of selecting the bootloader when choosing the installation of a specific operating system.grub4dos: A bootloader package designed to allow users to select between multiple operating systems installed on a single system.syslinux: This is a lightweight bootloader package designed to allow users to select what type of or what operating systems are to be installed.QEMU Emulator: QEMU Emulator or Quick Emulator is a hardware virtualization tool that helps the user to test the booting capabilities of a Drive.Cluster Size: The contiguous groups of sectors that are assigned by the file system are called as clusters.File System: This controls the accessibility of the data. This accessibility makes sure that the data is copied properly.Bad Sector: This is a bonus feature that some special bootable USB maker tools provide the users with. Here, the bootable drive is checked if there are any bad sectors or corrupt subpartitions after the creation of a bootable USB.

Prerequisites for creation of a bootable USB

Now let us see how to create or make a bootable USB Drive using CMD or free software.

Make Bootable USB using CMD

This is a great way to make a bootable USB drive. That is so because you do not need any extra or third party software to be run in order to do your task. So, here is how you do it. First of all, insert your USB Drive into the Computer. Then, open Command Prompt by searching for cmd in the Cortana search box or hit WINKEY+R to launch the Run utility and type cmd and hit Enter. Now, after a black window pops up, type in- to run the DISKPART utility.

After that, you will see a new black and white window popping up that would say DISKPART>. Now, type- to list all the Storage devices connected to your computer. After you hit Enter, you will see a list of storage devices (including your hard disk) connected to the computer. Identify your disk’s number here. After this, type- where X is the disk number, you just identified and hit Enter. You need to clear the table records and all the visible data on the drive. For that, type- and hit Enter. Now, you will need to recreate a new primary partition of the drive. For that enter this command- and hit Enter. You just created a new primary partition. Now, you will have to select it. To do so, type- and hit Enter. You have to format it now to make it visible to normal users. type in- to format it and hit Enter. If your platform supports UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) replace NTFS with FAT32 in the previous step. Type in- and hit Enter. Lastly, type- and press Enter key to exit the utility. Now, when you are done with preparing your image for the operating system, save it to the root of the USB Storage Device.

TIP: This post will show you how to Boot from USB Drive within Windows.

Free software to Create Bootable USB

1] Rufus

Rufus is another very famous and easy to use bootable USB Maker. This supports all kinds of USB Pendrives, Keys, Memory Sticks, etc. The minimum software requirement is that it needs Windows XP at least. The product page on its official website says this: It supports both UEFI and GPT installations and is also open source. It is free.

2] Windows USB/DVD Download Tool

Windows USB/DVD Download Tool is also a really simple tool to create a bootable USB Drive. All you need to have a pen drive and an ISO file. First, select the ISO file, check the destination drive and all the other booting settings. Now after you pass through all the four steps by clicking next, you have your bootable pen drive ready.

3] PowerISO

Not to be biased, but I personally love PowerISO. It is fast, multipurpose and is so feature rich. You can create various images from archives or folders; you can create bootable USB drives at a very great speed. Plus, it is portable and requires very fewer system resources. If you want to read more about it, head here to its official website.

4] ZOTAC WinUSB Maker

ZOTAC WinUSB Maker has been my most reliable companion every time I intended to create one. We all know ZOTAC as a company that manufactures Graphics Cards, Mini PCs or other digital boards or hardware like SSDs. As listed on its official website, here is what ZOTAC says about their product: The main highlighting features of this tool are its compatibility with Windows 7 and higher with .NET Framework 4.0 installed, Smooth and simple GUI based operation, Quick operations, x64 and x86 support and UEFI Support, etc. You can download a copy for you for FREE from zotac.com. Read next: How to create bootable USB media from ISO for Windows.