I have: en_windows_10_pro_10240_x64_dvd (3.71 Gbytes) Rufus 2.2 (Latest version) 16 Gbtye SanDisk Cruzer Thumb Drive I made a Win7 USB boot drive last week, so the only thing new here is the Win10 .ISO. It's failed half-way through the process four (4) times. I take the standard, default settings. Is there something special one has to do with Win10? I've done some research and I find no evidence that there is something special about Win10.
could be the iso or pen drive, check pen drive with full format and get another iso if pen drive's ok
Plug in the thumb drive. Now open command prompt type "diskpart" "list disk" "sel disk #" (#) (the number that corresponds with your flash drive) "clean" "create partition primary" ----------------------------------- Now rufus away... Make sure your using the right bios/gpt sceme that coinsides with your motherboard or else the flash drive wont boot.
So when I 1st read these posts I was annoyed because, well duh, everyone knows that thumbdrives either work or they do not. They don't "sort of" work. And actually, as it turns out, they actually do sometimes "sort of" work. The 16 Gbyte SanDisk Cruzer (standard Walmart grade thumbdrive) had just been used to install a Win7 installation, so it COULDN'T be defective, but after I had Rufus "check for bad sectors" and it found 256 bad sectors, I did some Googling and long story short I ran a low-level format on the USB drive (took over 2 hours) and the 5th time of running Rufus was the charm. It works now. Lessons learned: Don't ignore the obvious. It's obvious for a reason. Don't get mad at people that post the obvious. They might know you are dumb when you do not. Thumb drives can have bad sectors. Low-level formats ARE actually good for something (I've been reading about them for years and figured they were shiny objects for autistic idiot computer savants to play with.) I wonder if instead of doing "Quick Formats" (NTFS), if I had done a regular "long" format, if that wouldn't have fixed the problem just as well, and in much less time. 2 hours +, literally, for this low-level format tool to do it's thing. I had several false starts, including Easeus something-or-other, "Dr. UFD" (which wouldn't even run) and a couple of others, until I found a recommendation from hddguru and the download came from hddguru and I was gold. (hddguru, btw, is the most trusted site I know of. Nothing stupid gets past those guys. Anyone posting anything stupid gets gang butt-raped to death, i.e. "Death by Boola-Boola". hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/ So I'm gold now, and thanks for the numerous responses. Where are all you folks when I CAN'T fix the problem myself? Booted to my shiny new Windows 10 USB Installation Drive and discovered that Win10 will not install on a GPT partitioned hard drive, nor will it convert a GPT partitioned drive to NTFS, so I'm going to have to do some preparatory work before I try to install Win10 tomorrow. Thanks again for all the responses. After the low-level format, it worked in NTFS. I have an older HP desktop with a quad-core CPU and 8 Gbyte of DDR800 RAM running in dual channel. Nothing fancy. Thanks, I swear by Rufus, but am always interested in alternatives. DOS commands give me the "meat sweats" ("Progressive" commercial, aka "Flo" reference). I have a monster under my bed named "Sudo". I appreciate the help. Might help the next person, though. I saw that while I was at the MS download page, and briefly considered using it. It's nice to see Microsoft making tools that 90% of their Users can't (not smart enough) use, lol... I'd like to see my mom making a bootable USB drive, roflmao. Add my name to the list of successful Rufus/Win10 ISO Installation USB drive makers. Given the popularity of the thread, etc... I'd like to think about future readers and what else they might want to know. One question I had was, what is the best Win10 ISO image to use, and what is the best source for it. I got mine from a site that starts with a "K" (I don't know what forum rules are here about that kind of thing), and all I'm really doing is putting my toe in the water. If I decide at some point to actually commit to Win10 and use it as my daily system, what is the best version of Win10 to use, and where do you get it. I've seen several different names thrown around "RTM", "Build xyz" etc..., so any clarity in that respect might help me later, as well as anyone else reading this thread.
The 16GB Sandisk Cruzer is a bit "eccentric" in that it can look like a fixed hard drive instead of a standard removable USB. I battled with it when trying to create an earlier version of a hackintosh installer. Google "sandisk 16gb looks like hard drive" for additional info.
I like your learned lesson: Thumbdrives actually "sort of" work, sometimes. Yes those devices can be defective in various ways, fortunately yours was fixed with HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool, the one I always use to fix things lol
I had issues with Rufus and Windows 10 homebrew isos for some reason. However, using the Windows 7 Bootable USB utility instead worked.
Were you using front or back USBs? The front is cabled to the motherboard so is often not that reliable--you've probably gotten errors indicated that it's not in 2.0 mode but only 1.1. If using the front, I would use the back since that's right off the motherboard, and is always more reliable.
I know what is going on.... you used Rufus, changed it to fat32 and gpt.... but then, you selected the iso... you didn't realize that the fat32 and got setting went back to normal ntfs after selecting the iso, you didn't notice, and you wrote the thumb drive ntfs instead of fat32. Rufus seems to lose selected settings, so verify them twice before hitting start.