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I want to burn an ISO to a flash drive on Windows. I know that this is possible using software like balenaEtcher, but I was wondering if Windows had a build-in tool.

Badasahog
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    I'm not sure what you mean by "burn an ISO to a flash drive", but please read this answer just in case. – Kamil Maciorowski Aug 11 '22 at 14:06
  • @KamilMaciorowski yes, that's what I want to do, but on windows. I want to make a bootable USB – Badasahog Aug 11 '22 at 14:17
  • AFAIK there isn't any preinstalled tool. Even Microsoft Answers often mention Rufus or other 3rd party tools. Now, Microsoft has one of its own that's used and recommend for creating Windows installers, the Media Creation tool, but apparently it only runs from the the downloads webpage. – ChanganAuto Aug 11 '22 at 14:27
  • My concerns: (1) There are ISOs and there are images of filesystems of other types (or even entire disks with partition tables) called "ISO". (2) ISOs are not for flash devices, but some are isohybrid. (3) "To burn" in this context usually means to copy byte by byte like with dd. An alternative is to create a partition table, filesystem(s) and to copy files. // Depending on what ISO or "ISO" you have, different method(s) will work, thus different tool(s). IMO the linked answer explains a lot. I guess in PowerShell there should be something equivalent to dd, but it may be not what you need. – Kamil Maciorowski Aug 11 '22 at 14:30
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    Windows Disc Image Burner actually still exists on Windows 10. – Ramhound Aug 11 '22 at 14:55
  • @Ramhound does that work for USBs? – Badasahog Aug 11 '22 at 14:59
  • @Badasahog - No; It burns a disk. You need third-party software to make a bootable removable flash drive out of an ISO. – Ramhound Aug 11 '22 at 15:02
  • There was an old one for W7 from Microsoft, no sure if it works in later versions but bet it does>>>>https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool – Moab Aug 11 '22 at 17:00
  • It's safer to use a recent third-party tool. – harrymc Aug 11 '22 at 18:22
  • It depends on the ISO: Microsoft offers their Media Creation Tool, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 for Windows only. For Linux and other OS's, use a third-party tool such as Rufus, YUMI, etc. To gt an idea if software is safe, check it at VirusTotal. – DrMoishe Pippik Aug 11 '22 at 20:11

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Probably not native. The issue is that a native Windows tool may not fully copy all bootable partitions and sectors onto the burned filesystem.

If you run into USB-burned images that don't work on Windows, many people use Rufus.

That is what I used the very first time I installed Manjaro when I only had Windows on my machine to start with.

After that, I always used the Linux command line with this:

sudo dd bs=4M if=my_linux_dl_image.iso of=/dev/sdX conv=fdatasync status=progress
  • sdX is the USB device found with lsblk
  • my_linux_dl_image.iso is the Linux .iso image you downloaded
Jesse
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  • Mods and reviewers: Pardon the seemingly off-topic answer, but this question had no answers for a year and a half. Users need some direction to be pointed in. – Jesse Feb 07 '24 at 19:52