Keeping a bootable USB of the current operating system is just a basic tier of protection. It brings a false sense of confidence that one day, when your computer cannot load the OS, you can use the ...

As someone who extensively writes about all things Windows, I find myself installing the Windows operating system quite often. Most of the time, these installations are geared toward setting up ...

I tested Rufus, Ventoy, and balenaEtcher with Linux Mint to see which one deserves a permanent spot on my emergency USB drive.

Rufus is a free, portable utility that creates bootable USB flash drives from ISO files. As of 2026, the latest version is Rufus 4.13 — and it’s faster and more capable than ever, with built-in ...

Richard is the PC Hardware Lead at XDA and has been covering the technology industry for almost two decades. He's been building PCs since young, and when not creating content, you can often find him ...

We all need to start from scratch sometimes and if you're building a new PC, chances are you'll need to learn how to make a bootable USB drive. This will enable you to boot your PC directly from a USB ...