Rufus VS uefi-ntfs

Compare Rufus vs uefi-ntfs and see what are their differences.

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Rufus uefi-ntfs
548 15
26,835 720
- -
8.7 4.9
2 days ago 24 days ago
C C
GNU General Public License v3.0 only GNU General Public License v3.0 only
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

Rufus

Posts with mentions or reviews of Rufus. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-21.
  • Warn if (Windows ISO) media will no longer be bootable after Q1 2024 (Rufus)
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 23 Dec 2023
  • How to Install Windows 11 On A Device That Does Not Meet Windows 11 Requirements
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 22 Dec 2023
    You can also use Rufus. It has options to customize Windows 11 and one of them is to disable the hardware module requirement.

    https://rufus.ie

  • Windows 10 end of life could prompt torrent of e-waste
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 21 Dec 2023
    You can use Rufus: https://rufus.ie/en/

    To modify the ISO to turn off hardware check and TPM support for Windows 11 to install it on an unsupported PC.

    https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/wiki/FAQ#user-content-Help_...

    Besides Linux and BSD Unix there is: https://reactos.org/ https://aros.sourceforge.io/ https://www.haiku-os.org/ and https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/

    I know some third-world nations still use DOS and the BORLAND DOS compilers because people donate old computers to their nations.

    With the right OS, old computers are still usable. Please don't throw them away, e-cycle them so they get used by poor nations that cannot afford new PCs.

  • Ventoy
    8 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 18 Dec 2023
    3. NVMe drives may not gracefully handle sudden disconnections, because USB connections are inherently unreliable interfaces prone to physical disruption and loss of power.

    If your drive decides to stop showing up, first try loading up the boot device selection screen in the UEFI, and then insert the drive. It may take several seconds to show up. If trying that a few times doesn’t work, the drive may be stuck in a bad state, and might be recovered with the power cycle technique https://dfarq.homeip.net/fix-dead-ssd/

    Always set up automatic backups if you actually have non-replaceable data on the drive. They can and will just suddenly die forever with loss of all data, just like thumb drives. You have been warned.

    All that said, there are generally less issues if you are simply putting ventoy on it to install from a loaded iso.

    I have a dual raid1 sata enclosure that I use to boot a windows to go install created with Rufus (https://github.com/pbatard/rufus), which makes testing and benchmarking so much nicer to deal with. I’ve even stuck games on it, and other than relative filesystem slowness it works pretty great.

  • Tried to create a RAID 1 array without researching properly
    1 project | /r/datarecovery | 11 Dec 2023
    The author has extensive documentation and tutorial content. First steps: download CD image, download Rufus (http://rufus.ie), write the image to the flash drive, remember that this will clear the data on the flash drive and it will not be recoverable.
  • I reset my pc but it only boots up with my EXTERNAL HDD INSTEAD OF SSD
    1 project | /r/AcerNitro | 11 Dec 2023
    Seems like you're an absolute newbie. Well, here is the website: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus Direct download link Youtube guide to create a bootable pen-drive
  • Terrible CPU & GPU utilization (need help!!!)
    1 project | /r/computers | 9 Dec 2023
    You can use that to create a bootable usb stick using rufus: https://rufus.ie
  • Need help with USB bootloading
    1 project | /r/Ubuntu | 8 Dec 2023
    Note: Once you have created the "persistent partition" on the pedrive (you can use Rufus),during the Ubuntu installation you have to select that partition as your /home
  • Installed new hd cant get windows to load iso
    1 project | /r/GAAB350 | 7 Dec 2023
  • I flashed a usb for a bootable os, now it won't show up when plugged in and i can't boot to it.
    1 project | /r/pcmasterrace | 10 Jul 2023
    Download rufus portable https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/download/v4.1/rufus-4.1p.exe

uefi-ntfs

Posts with mentions or reviews of uefi-ntfs. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-01-16.
  • How long would it take for USB 2.0 to boot windows2go?
    1 project | /r/windows | 26 Mar 2023
    Because we use UEFI:NTFS to ensure that:
  • Does anyone know why Rufus creates a second "UEFI" volume that's <1MB?
    1 project | /r/software | 24 Feb 2023
    Indeed, that 1 MB volume is the UEFI:NTFS partition that is described here.
  • MSI's (In)Secure Boot
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 16 Jan 2023
    > Can you please link me some articles/references?

    Well explained here: https://gabrielsieben.tech/2022/07/29/remote-assertion-is-co...

    So the issue is not the SecureBoot itself, but the ways it can and has been and will be leveraged against the user. If a desktop computer example is not enough, look at how Android phones have increasingly tightened down everything. You can't just take any model and install a custom OS (aka ROM in Android community). It was universally easy 10 years ago, that's why Cyanogenmod became so popular. Now your choices are very limited.

    > \> > But that is besides the fact that these acts of aggression

    A great thread and arguments provided here, how Microsoft (who love open source, according to own PR) will not sign anything GPLv3 for SecureBoot: https://github.com/pbatard/uefi-ntfs/issues/20#issuecomment-...

    Microsoft has the defacto monopoly over the signature process, because nobody embeds any CAs in UEFI except for Microsoft's. What would be a user-friendly way? To preload UEFI with major Linux distros' keys, disabled by default, with an easy first-time setup menu to select what to do.

    My laptop came with SecureBoot enabled by default although being "OS: FreeDOS" on paper. I had to figure out to disable it to boot into a live distro else it fell into an EFI shell.

    > Vote with your wallet, don't buy the hardware.

    > ... I am much more concerned about Intel ME and AMD PSP, where's the outrage about that?

    With this I just want to say the wallet argument doesn't work when something slowly becomes the status quo and it takes experts/activists to fight back (a minority by numbers).

    > I still can't easily utilise a TPM [...] and nobody bothered to integrate the functionality?

    I agree, I'd have liked to enforce SecureBoot post-installation but it is too much hassle for me, I think only RedHat made good improvements in this area where it's actually easily usable (auto signing the kernel image etc.)

    > Security isn't about what's unlikely, it's about the entire chain.

    ... But if I followed through, then still the weakest point is/becomes the keyboard. It would be trivial for an evil maid to add a keylogging device between your desktop and the physical keyboard. Do you check the rear IO on each boot? The considerations differ for laptops where you can't just plug something inbetween and need to disassemble it (time required: over night or airport luggage).

  • Windows 10 ISO with a large WIM - can’t boot
    1 project | /r/sysadmin | 2 Dec 2022
    Please see here or here.
  • Looking for help installing a specific distro on a very peculiar computer.
    1 project | /r/linuxquestions | 27 Oct 2022
    I am the developer of Rufus, and I have spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that, YES, EVEN UEFI COMPUTERS THAT ARE "ALLEGEDLY" ONLY MEANT TO SUPPORT FAT32 FOR BOOT CAN ACTUALLY BOOT FROM THE NTFS PARTITION CREATED BY RUFUS (through the magic of a little solution called UEFI:NTFS). See also this entry from our FAQ.
  • Rufus made 2 UEFI partitions. Which one to choose?
    1 project | /r/techsupport | 22 Oct 2022
    For more details about the second UEFI:NTFS partition, see https://github.com/pbatard/uefi-ntfs.
  • I made a USB for Build 25120 with Rufus and for some reason it is also displaying the UEFI partition for it. It is meant to happen?
    1 project | /r/windowsinsiders | 17 Jun 2022
    Rufus dev here. That's the UEFI:NTFS partition, needed to boot computers that don't have a native NTFS driver and it is completely harmless (and uses a negligible amount of space since it's just 1 MB). So, yes, this is meant to happen.
  • Anyone able to install windows on steam deck while only owning a mac?
    2 projects | /r/SteamDeck | 3 May 2022
    So if you want to copy the contents of the ISO as is, you need to extract them to exFAT or NTFS (which are file systems that the Windows installer can also read outside of FAT), but this means that you may have to install an exFAT or NTFS UEFI driver to chain load the Windows installer, which is why utilities like Rufus and WoeUSB add a 1 MB UEFI:NTFS partition at the end of the drive, that takes care of that.
  • Can't get Windows 11 image to boot.
    1 project | /r/techsupport | 4 Dec 2021
    Rufus uses UEFI:NTFS, and therefore WILL allow your firmware to boot from NTFS. So, no, you don't have to use FAT32, and you should let Rufus create the drive with NTFS, as, even when using NTFS, it will create a drive that can be booted from UEFI.
  • [Discussion] Tool to burn in USB a standalone media created in SCCM
    1 project | /r/SCCM | 27 Nov 2021
    If it's because Rufus creates 2 partitions, then you should read about this (UEFI:NTFS is what Rufus uses to boot drives that are NOT compatible with UEFI, such as ones where you cannot use FAT32 because they contain a file that is larger than 4 GB), and understand that the data on the NTFS partition is exactly the same as the one you'd have found on a FAT32 drive, if your data was suitable for FAT32.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Rufus and uefi-ntfs you can also consider the following projects:

Ventoy - A new bootable USB solution.

webMAN-MOD - Extended services for PS3 console (web server, ftp server, netiso, ntfs, ps3mapi, etc.)

shredos.x86_64 - Shredos Disk Eraser 64 bit for all Intel 64 bit processors as well as processors from AMD and other vendors which make compatible 64 bit chips. ShredOS - Secure disk erasure/wipe

ntfs3 - ntfs3 Linux kernel module by Paragon Software

MediaCreationTool.bat - Universal MCT wrapper script for all Windows 10/11 versions from 1507 to 21H2!

WoeUSB - A Microsoft Windows® USB installation media preparer for GNU+Linux

unetbootin - UNetbootin installs Linux/BSD distributions to a partition or USB drive

Reverse-Engineering-Tutorial - A FREE comprehensive reverse engineering tutorial covering x86, x64, 32-bit ARM & 64-bit ARM architectures.

Fido - A PowerShell script to download Windows or UEFI Shell ISOs

IRISMAN - All-in-one backup manager for PlayStation®3. Fork of Iris Manager.

arch-linux-installation-guide - An easy to follow Arch Linux installation guide. This guide will show you how to properly install Arch Linux on UEFI/BIOS systems, ext4/btrfs file systems; using systemd-bootloader/GRUB and systemd-networkd/NetworkManager for networking. These are the given examples but I have provided links to sections with the information necessary to install any 86_64 system

SynapseOS - Синапс ОС (SynapseOS) - российская микроядерная операционная система.