Write Image ISO to USB: Win32 Disk Imager

Win32 Disk Imager is a tool that can be used to write Image ISO to USB drives, burn an IMG to USB, create backups, duplicate or clone a USB flash drive and more. This free disk imaging and cloning tool used to write raw disk images to a USB drive from Windows. As you might have guessed, this utility can also create a backup disk image of a flash drive. You can then use the backup image to clone a new USB drive or restore the original drive.

What is Win32 Disk Imager?

This Open Source application allows users to create, write, and read disk image files to and from removable storage devices, such as USB drives and SD cards. It is primarily designed for Windows operating systems, hence the "Win32" in its name. Win32 Disk Imager might be used for tasks such as creating backup images of SD cards used in Raspberry Pi projects or flashing operating system images onto bootable USB drives.

Key features include:

• Backup Disk Imaging (USB to IMG): Create a complete copy of a storage device, including all its partitions and data, and save it as a disk image file (.img).
• Writing Disk Images (USB Cloning): It can be used as a USB cloner tool, allowing you to write a previously backed up disk image file back to another storage device, effectively replicating the contents of the source image onto the destination device. This is handy for creating bootable USB drives or restoring a drive from a backup image.
• Built in Verifier (Hash Checker): Also included is a built in hash checker which helps to ensure your files aren't corrupted.
• Compatibility: It is compatible with a wide range of removable storage devices, such as external USB hard drives, flash drives, SD cards, microSD cards, and more.

How does Win32 Disk Imager work?

Much like Etcher, this Win32 Disk Imager works to direct copy data from .IMG or .ISO files to a removable device. Functioning much like a dd raw write command by overwriting the entire disk with raw data from the source file. As a result, any existing content on the drive is overwritten.

Some consider this method destructive because the entire disk, including the boot record and partition table data, becomes overwritten. In some cases the device might even appear unwritable. However, this is almost always only temporary and the drive can usually be restored to factory default.

If you need to, you can easily restore a USB flash drive to its original state after using this type of tool.
This tool works great for making clones of hard disk images, CD-ROM ISO files, or even exported virtual hard drives. When using this software, you should be aware that the new disk capacity is set to the source file filesystem size. However, in some cases this can be fixed by extending or growing the filesystem into the unallocated space.

If you'd rather not use a destructive method, you might consider using a different USB Boot utility such as UNetBootin or a UNetbootin alternative such as our UUI bootable USB software.

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How to Write ISO to USB using Win32 Disk Imager

You can use the Win32 Disk Imager to Write an Image or ISO file to a USB drive. And if you use a bootable hybrid image, the resulting cloned drive will also be made bootable. To write Image ISO to USB:

First, download install and start Win32 Disk Imager (Run as Administrator)

1. Step 1.) Click the folder icon, then browse to and select your .img or .iso file.
   Note: From the file explorer browser window during step one, use the dropdown in the lower right hand corner and (choose *.* to show your ISO files).
   
2. Step 2.) Select your removable device from the device dropdown.
3. Step 3.) Click the Write button to write the ISO Image to your USB drive.

There you have it. That's all there is to creating bootable USB from an ISO file!

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Backup or Clone a USB flash drive

When you backup USB flash drive, the resulting .img file of the device can later be used to restore or write the original contents back onto the device. Alternately, you could also use the backed up image to create a clone on another drive. It's pretty common to use Win32 Disk Imager as a USB duplicator or even create a bootable USB IMG of the operating system installed on a drive.

How to Create a bootable USB IMG

To backup a drive to an image file or create a bootable USB IMG, (assuming the source drive is already bootable):

First, start Win32 Disk Imager (Run as Administrator)

1. Type a path as well as a filename to use for your backup image.
2. From the drop list, select the drive you want to backup.
3. Click the Read button to backup the entire drive to an image file.

That is really all there is to creating a copy of your USB as an IMG file. You can write this saved image back to USB drive just as you would burn an ISO to USB.

With the help of the Win32 disk imaging tool, you are able to create backup images of your data or an entirely bootable USB drive. You can also use it to burn or write ISO or IMG files to USB. In addition, you might opt to use it as a USB cloner to create copies of or duplicate a USB drive.

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Write ISO to USB Using the dd Command in Linux

In Linux you can simply use dd. The dd command is a powerful utility that allows you to write disk images directly to USB drives. This method can be particularly useful for creating bootable USB drives from ISO or IMG files. Here’s how to do it:

Warning: Using dd can be destructive, as it will overwrite any data on the target device. Always remember to verify that you have selected the correct drive to avoid any accidental data loss.

Writing an ISO to USB using dd

1. Open Terminal: Launch your terminal application.
2. Identify the USB Drive: Before using dd, you need to find out the device name of your USB drive. You can do this with the following command:

   lsblk

   This command will list all block devices. Look for your USB drive (it’s usually listed as /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc., depending on your system).

3. Unmount the USB Drive: If the USB drive is mounted, you need to unmount it first. Replace /dev/sdX with your USB drive's identifier:

   sudo umount /dev/sdX

4. Write the Image to the USB Drive: Use the dd command to write the image. Replace /path/to/your/image.iso with the path to your ISO or IMG file and /dev/sdX with your USB drive's identifier:

   sudo dd if=/path/to/your/image.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

   • if= specifies the input file (the image you want to write).
   • of= specifies the output file (your USB drive).
   • bs=4M sets the block size to 4 megabytes for faster writing.
   • status=progress will show you the progress of the operation.
5. Sync the File System: After dd finishes writing the image, ensure all data is written to the USB drive by executing:

   sync

That’s it! Your USB drive should now be ready to boot from the image you wrote to it.