How to Create a Bootable Windows 10 USB Flash Drive

Windows 10 has already passed 67 million installs by the second day of its release. This is a pretty strong indication that Windows 10 is actually far more better than Windows 8. As of now, Windows users have two choices to install Windows 10. People who had reserved their free upgrade to Windows 10 before the 29th of july, are already receiving the update. As for others, you can use the media creation tool provided by Microsoft to either create a Bootable Windows 10 ISO image or directly download the ISO to your PC.
I would strongly recommend you to install Windows 10 by using a Bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive. Of course this is how Windows will retail as Microsoft is now ditching DVD discs for USB Flash drives.
There are two methods to create a Bootable USB Flash Drive for Windows 10. If you follow the first method, you can make use of RUFUS, a free program to create Bootable USB Flash drives. Rufus supports almost all major operating systems and is even faster than other Bootable USB flash drive creation programs.
Alternatively, if you follow the second method, you can make use the media creation tool provided by Microsoft for Windows 10 to create a bootable USB flash drive. This method can sometimes be very slow, since the media creation tool will download the Windows 10 ISO image directly from Microsoft and then create the Bootable Windows 10 USB Flash Drive.
For those who want to perform a fresh installation of Windows 10 on their PC’s, Here’s how you can use Rufus to create a Bootable Windows 10 USB Flash Drive. Before you proceed ahead, make sure that your computer passes the minimum system requirements for Windows 10 as stated by Microsoft.

Windows 10 Minimum System Requirements.

• Latest OS: Make sure that you are running the latest version of either Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 Update. Don’t know which version you are running? Check here to find out. Need to download the latest version? Click here for Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 Update.
• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2GB for 64-bit
• Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20GB for 64-bit OS
• Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver
• Display Resolution: 800×600

Method 1: Create a Bootable Windows 10 USB Flash Drive using Rufus

Before we start with creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows, you will need to have the following things.
Prerequisites for Method 1:

1. Rufus
2. Windows 10 ISO image ( Click here to download a Windows 10 ISO image directly from Microsoft )

Download Rufus and run it with Administrator rights.

• Step 1: Select the USB drive.
• Step 2: Select “ Select MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI “ ( Note: If your PC has UEFI bios, select the other two options. )
• Step 3: Select NTFS for File system. ( Note: Select FAT32 if your PC UEFI bios. )
• Step 4: Select the default Cluster size.
• Step 5: Type in a name for the Bootable USB Flash Drive.
• Step 6: Make sure you select these three options under Format options.

1. Quick Format
2. Create a Bootable disk using.
3. Create extended labels and icon files.

• Step 7: Select the dropdown menu next to Create a Bootable disk using and select ISO Image.
• Step 8: Select the Drive icon next to ISO Image and then select the Windows 10 ISO file.
• Step 9: Verify all the settings and then click on the Start button.

That’s it, now you’ll just have to wait for a couple minutes more and the Windows 10 Bootable USB Flash Drive should be ready for installing Windows 10 on your PC.

Method 2: Create a Bootable WIndows 10 USB Flash drive using the Microsoft Media Creation Tool.

Prerequisites for Method 2:
Microsoft Media Creation Tool for Windows 10.

• Microsoft Media Creation Tool for Windows 10 ( 32 bit )
• Microsoft Media Creation Tool for Windows 10 ( 64 bit )

Download and Install the Media creation tool for Windows 10.

• Step 1: Run the Media creation tool for Windows 10 and select Create Installation Media for another PC.

• Step 2: Select the Language, Edition and Architecture.

Note: You can select the both option for architecture if you want to create a two in one Windows 10 ISO which has both the 32 bit  and 64 bit version of Windows 10.

• Step 3: Click on the Next button when you have selected the above options.

• Step 4: Select USB Flash Drive option to create a Bootable Windows 10 USB Flash drive

• Step 5: Select a USB drive from the list and click on Next.

That’s it, now you’ll have to wait for a couple of hours until the Windows 10 download completes and the Bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive gets created.