If you have a Windows 10 ISO file, burn it to a USB drive so that you can create a Windows 10 installation/startup disk. Some people think burning is just simply copying the ISO file to the USB drive. Actually, it’s not that simple and you cannot do that without a third-party burning tool. Now this page will show you how to burn a Windows 10 ISO file to USB drive with the free Rufus program.
Here's how you can download Windows 10 Pro, Home (x86, x64) ISO images officially and legally directly from Microsoft. You are all set to either create a bootable Windows 10 USB drive. Before you install Windows 10 from a flash USB drive, you need to burn a Windows 10 ISO file to a USB drive. Here you will learn how to burn Windows 10 ISO to USB step by step. Before you get started, you need to prepare a USB drive and plug it to your computer. For Windows 10 32-bit editions, you will need a USB with the maximum 4GB free space. Here “J” is the drive letter of your virtual drive containing Windows 10 ISO or DVD drive containing installation files. CD BOOT and press enter. Step 7: Finally, type the following command: BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 K: In the above command, replace “K” with the drive letter of your USB drive that you’re making bootable.
Windows 10 tip: Repair your Windows 10 installation. (Full details are in my Windows 10 installation FAQ.) Download the ISO and double-click to mount it as a virtual drive. (Or, if you chose. If you are installing Windows 10 on a PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista, or if you need to create installation media to install Windows 10 on a different PC, see Using the tool to create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) to install Windows 10 on a different PC section below.
Step 1: Download the free Rufus tool from http://rufus.akeo.ie/.
Step 2: Double-click the rufus-3.5.exe file, or rufus-3.4.exe, or some other, just depending on the program version you’ve downloaded, to run the Rufus program.
Step 3: Insert a USB device into your computer.
Step 4: Then Rufus program will immediately recognize the inserted USB device and you can see your USB drive name displayed in the drop-down menu under Device.
Step 5: Click the SELECT button. When the 'Open' dialog opens, select the target Windows 10 ISO file and click Open. Then the selected ISO file will be displayed under 'Boot selection'.
Step 6: Select MBR under 'Partition scheme' so that the bootable USB can boot on both UEFI and BIOS computer.
Step 7: Leave the remaining options the default state, click START button and then confirm the “WARNING: ALL DATA ON DEVICE WII BE DESTROYED” dialog to start burning the Windows 10 ISO file to the USB drive. If you have important data on this USB drive, backup them first before you confirm the warning dialog.
Step 8: Wait patiently while the burning process is on and don’t unplug the USB drive. Usually, it takes around 10 minutes, depending on the size of the Windows 10 ISO file.
Step 9: When the burning progress reaches 100%, the burning is complete and you can close the Rufus program and unplug the USB drive.
When you finish burning a Windows 10 ISO image file to a USB drive, you get a Windows 10 installation USB. There are at least 3 things a Windows 10 installation USB can do for you, including Windows 10 installation, system repair, and resetting Windows 10 local account password.
Conclusion: An ISO file, including a Windows 10 ISO file is actually a copy of an entire data CD/DVD. You have to burn it to a USB or CD/DVD flash drive before you can use it. And it requires you to use a third-party burning tool like Rufus or some other to perform burning.