How to Make a USB bootable (using windows)

For most of the world a USB drive is simply a storage medium, we take our USB stick and store a large amount of photo's on them.  We get our 32gb USB stick from a retailer and use it to transfer our documents from school to home, or to work.  The overlooked part is that just because a USB drive is a storage medium, doesn't mean it can't be more than just a storage medium.  We can turn a standard USB thumb drive into a fully bootable usb operating system.  We can make ourselves a fully functioning USB drive based portable operating system.  An operating system not tied to any specific hardware, but can be booted onto almost any given computer with a USB slot.

To start we'll be downloading a Linux distro, but don't be fooled the ability of making a USB drive bootable isn't limited to only Linux, this process can be done with any Windows based operating system, as well as BSD, Solaris, or anything else you can imagine.  As for today's experiment, lacking additional windows licences, this is going to be a lot easier.  Download any version of Linux you prefer, if Linux is completely new to you, let me suggest downloading Ubuntu for your first time around.  Its a very user friendly and simple operating system for anyone new to the idea of using Linux.

Once Linux is downloaded you'll have what is known as an .iso file.  ISO files are images of CD/DVD disks fully intact and can be easily put onto a CD/DVD for reading purposes.  Keep that reading process in mind, though we are about to make an operating system, a live version of an operating system is generally read only, if it is put back onto a CD/DVD so this is why we are going to put it on a USB drive.

After we download Linux we'll have to download one more program from Pendrive Linux called Universal USB installer, no installation is needed since it's a simple .exe files.  All you have to do is run it.  Agree to the terms and conditions 

From here we'll be asked to full fill three easy steps.  Step one what operating system will you be installing on your USB drive?  The list of operating systems is quite extensive, but obviously with the sheer amount of operating systems available on the market, PenDrive Linux can't exactly put every single one on there.  If you find yourself in a situation where your operating system doesn't seem to be on the list, you can try to use the option of "other".  If it does not work you may need to download another image to put on your USB stick.

From this point forward you locate the ISO file on your local computer where ever you have it stored, then locate the USB stick you wish to install the operating system onto.  Then lastly click create, and go grab yourself a cup of coffee, this'll take a few minutes to do.

Simple as that, you now have a fully bootable USB drive operating system.  Now if you're comfortable in a specific environment, or you want to travel with an encrypted operating system you can.  By putting our operating system onto a flash drive we can make modifications and save files, fully encrypted if we so choose.  This is a good alternative ot testing out a new operating system on a system as well, if you don't want to completely format a hard drive, or set up a duel boot hard drive partition to play around, making something that is for lack of intents and purposes disposable.  Maybe you aren't going to be a fan of Linux Mint, or the new Windows 10, but if you want to play with it first, putting it on a USB drive may be a good solution.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, let me know in the comment section below.  And as always, be safe my goblins.

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