[2024 MEGA update!] 2 USB boot drives EVERY Windows user should make before it's too late! 

Tip: Instead of choosing to make a USB, I usually download the Windows ISO. That way I can use something like Rufus to make multiple keys without having to download it every time. 8GB thumb drives are cheap enough now, so I make more than one key because, as many of you, I am the designated tech guy in the family, and I find it useful to leave one of these Windows keys at each location where I might be expected to need it. That way, when they go, _"oh, as long as you're in the neighborhood, would you mind taking a look at my laptop... It hasn't booted in weeks!"_ , I'll be ready for them!

been using hirens for almost 30 yrs and it has never DISSAPOINTED!

I'm a total novice, some would call me a dummy ! I've been watching your vids for a while now and decided to have a go and upgrade my HP Laptop. Upgraded the RAM to 16Gb and now I'm attempting the HDD to SSD but I mistakenly bought the wrong size SSD and was unable to clone to it. I'm going to install it anyway so I will have to install a clean version of Windows. My question is do I have to make both of these usb sticks in order to boot my PC ? Your videos have given me the encouragement to do this stuff. I'm almost 60yrs of age and never had any training doing this so thanks Scott.

I'm not a certified A+ repair man. I'm just the guy everyone calls when their computers misbehave. I love having Hirens and Medi-cat. They are such great tools. Thank you very much.

Can’t believe this video was posted today! I work at a small repair shop, and have been troubleshooting a device all day. Hiren’s Boot is exactly the kind of Swiss Army knife I’m looking for. I can’t thank you enough for sharing. Rock on man! 🤘

Good stuff. I am now a subscriber. I always like learning new things and these certainly are helpful. Thanks. Oh, one more thing: Thank you, thank you for not playing any music while you are talking to us. I find more and more YT hosts feel playing music during their narration is a good thing. It is not.

I have a newer HP that blue screened months ago and I’ve had the thumb drives ready but I’m finally doing this (from another laptop) as I type. Fingers crossed 🤞 and ty! I’ve always been the tech gal in the fam so it’ll be a great tool

I also know the hirens name as "Highrens" and was using this tool when it was version 8/9. Now i am using version 15.2 DVD and on a usb drive (GRUB/syslinux) Thank you for the video too. There was never a worry on my side for losing data as i use a 321 backup:3x backup 1 on a cloud, 1 on a local disk mounted and 1 on a local disk unmounted :-) And i use Total commander to sync two with a click

Thanks a lot for the update. I saw your old video and when i checked the Hirens page things did'nt match but i went back to your channel and found the update which was superhelpful. Cheers from Sweden!

Love this channel. I just bought a banging PC, and it's my first. I've been reaching and learning about everything can. I've never done this, and I'm hoping this will be smooth to do.

I have both already, but thanks for the awesome video!! I actually just made those 2 USBs last week. :)

I just found your channel and subscribed as you might be able to teach me something I do not know, Im a self taught geek who helps fix peoples pc remotely or in person and you are not wrong about having bootable recovery USB drives.. I keep an updated version of Windows Media Creation with the latest version of Windows 10 and I have used Hiren's Boot CD and Knoppix, my goto is Win PE has a lot of recovery tools on and help me get that PC fixed. will be checking out your other videos keep them coming.

Thank you. Also, thank you for the link for the "decent and inexpensive flash drives with good ratings." They were so cheap, I just ordered two packs (one for myself and one as a gift). I am one of the .9's in your 95.9K Subscribers now :)

I'd have to recommend Ventoy for creating my bookable media, even if it is just for Windows installers. Ventoy allows you to put as many bootable isos as you can fit on the drive as you want and select which one to boot from. That way if you decide to update the image you can just copy the current iso to the drive instead of recreating the entire drive. Also since you can add any bootable iso, why not just copy the iso for Hiren's Boot CD onto Ventoy as well and have it on one drive. I definitely recommend Medicat. If Hiren's was a swiss army knife, then Medicat is a digital combat. While it is by no means small (~20GB larger than Hiren's) the extensive collection of tools it offers at times multiple ways to accomplish the same task tackling it differently though. This allows each user the flexibility to choose the tool that matches their work flow best. If I had to choose one weapon to go into the trenches with it would be Medicat.

Great video, and explanation. I was one of those hu got confused. All clear now.

Thanks, bro! You might wanna add the Windows ISO file to that list. It's great for doing a system refresh. It's kinda like a reset, where it brings back the main programming, though keeps your files and apps. Usually a good fix for Defender issues.

1:52 fairly certain you can spare yourself the effort of formatting the drive - the Media Creator will format it anyways. 6:42 only Rufus? No mention of/compatibility with Ventoy? I like Ventoy better because I can just chuck whatever ISOs I could/would ever use/need.

Thank you. Very well presented. I'll be sure to check out your other videos.

Well, I only have about 500 old flash drives laying around the house LOL. Thanks for the tips. You are quite right... most people don't think about doing this until their computer croaks. Thank you!

Thanks for taking the time to make these videos. 🤓🖒 This is a God send. I know some folks that had issues with their PC's, and this video helped fix the issues. Thanks and keep up the good work 🤓🖒

I do subscribe to this channel, and he is a wonderful guy who helps people with his knowledge, and I appreciate it.

You are a very good teacher... So many do not have a clue on how to teach or convey instructions.. Thank you

It's great to have access to tools; it's something else altogether to know what to do with them.

Love this channel. I created a usb boot disk from your instructions in the videos which you'd done previously. And it came in super handy today when I had to wipe a laptop clean to reinstall Windows. Worked like a charm! Thank you!!! ❤

Why not using Ventoy anymore? Like the previous video you make. (And put it all in one drive?)

I stumbled on Hirens from one of your videos. It is a great utility.

Hahaha... 2 hrs too late,,LOL, I just finished making the two USB sticks from your earlier video, and also left a comment that rufus was now required... I had Rufus already. Thanks for the update. Your video from 3 months ago just appeared in my feed.

I appreciate how Scott tries to respond to all the comments. The videos ain`t bad either😏. I followed your ventoy video since i found it before seeing this one.

Thank you. I'm tired of companies encouraging the buying of things unnecessary.

I've been using Windows since XP and my system never broke down, like, never really... guess I'm just lucky or too paranoid! Still going to download Hirens just in case!

12:54 use OEM recovery disk to create factory image with all drivers & preloaded software included awesome. only this was new to me, and important enough to be liked just for this lol.

I think you should make a video comparing Hirens boot utility media vs Medicat boot utility media Also, show how both can be put on a single usb using Ventoy along with a windows 10 /11 boot image

You are so close to 100k. I am so happy for you ❤. Old time subscriber 😊

Thank you very much Computer Guy!! Very very well presented!!

Thank you for the great vids and update! Question, a few months ago you did a video about Ventoy - is this a better than using hirens?

MBR partition only support 2tb of storage..GPT is unlimited storage capacity. Pressing -“Alt+E” doesn’t make any special trick but it only toggles partition scheme from GPT to MBR.

better option: easy2boot - put all the OS installer ISO's as well as the toolkit ISO's on one drive and allow Easy to boot to multiboot everything. Bonus, get macrium reflect free PE on the drive as well, and clone / image drives as well. A 2tb M.2 drive in a usb enclosure makes a very fast and reliable USB toolkit drive with tons of space.

I like how you explain things slowly because not everybody is a pc expert.

Still wondering why it has to be on two separate sticks. It would be more economical and handy to use just one.

I had to manually insert the ISO into Rufus. Now, Rufus will not allow : Device, partition scheme, target system, file system, or cluster size manipulation after dragging the ISO in. All of the drop downs are grayed out and contain nothing. Now what? Win10 home; version22H2

Great video - thank you 💕💕 that USB utility disk sound fantastic

I recommend Sergei Strelec boot because it was the only one that recognized my nvme drive.

Are you planning to upload a video about "Medicat" specifically? I think you mentioned it in your previous video. I'm asking because there isn't a video about it yet. It could be a good idea for content if you're considering it.

Thanks Scott.

Than ks for the video, I am using 2 32GB usb sticks for my installer usbs, making the hirens one as i type this. I made a bootable 4gb dvd-r from the image earlier as my external usb 3 disc burner still functions...

Ventoy adds another level to utility tools

I'll have to watch this video again because I'm lost watching it once. I'm not a computer whiz. I'm getting a new Dell XPS 8960 Windows 11 PC in a couple of weeks and I got 3 SanDisk 32 GB flash drives as per your previous video for recovery drives and a system repair image on Amazon. After getting those two things done, my next adjustment will be to make Windows 11 look like Windows 7 as much as possible. I did the same with Windows 10 and it's a mix of both. I didn't like those squares on Windows 10's startup image, and I certainly don't like that large Windows 11 menu in the middle of the screen or that blue colored toilet paper image in the background.

Now I have a USB with that Hiren's thing, but there are just some folders in there, with many links, but what can I use that for? What I saw in your Hirens, there were some troubleshooting links, like eg. diagnostic which is not what I have, but that's probably me who has something wrong, even though I followed your descriptions step by step.

😊Thanks for the detailed walk through!

Great video, thank you!

Hey there Scott! Thanks for the 2024 update. Always enjoy your content. A quick question, so must it be 2 USB drives? As I have Ventoy on mine. Is that not the way to go anymore? Thanks.

I am always learning new stuff from these videos. A quick question though. Am I right in thinking that if I do, say a monthly clone of my hard drive, and do regular backups of my important files to an external storage device, then I should never really have any need for the tools in this video? (I take for granted that I do not clone a faulty hard drive as that would of course be a bit of a show stopper).

I recently discovered that Dell computers seem to have RAID enabled by default even on single drive systems (which causes the SSD to not be detected by the windows installer)

I have found Rufus to be a bit complicated. Instead, I used balena Etcher to install the iso file to by USB drive.

Looks like Rufus has a new update, 4.5 now. Running Windows 10 pro, still coming up with "this app unable to run on this PC, check publisher for previous versions". Trying to boot the Hirens flash drive. Thanks

Thanks for making this very helpful video! I just subscribed to your channel.

First: The steps for Windows 11 installation media is a little different. Second: I'm curious if you bought the Windows installation flash drive from a store. Is this Installation media flash drive necessary? Third: When creating the file in Rufus for (Windows 11) and you change to GPT, the Target System changes from BIOS or UEFI to, UEFI (non CSM) Fourth: Is this compatible with Laptop and Desktop?

Ultimate boot cd used to be the thing but I think its not been updated in almost 10 years.

Great video! Please explain where a "windows recovery" drive fits in this set of tools. I have already created the windows recovery drive from my PC, do I still need the windows installation USB drive also?? or are they the same?

When i press alt+E and it just opens mail

Hi, great YT & thank you. Can you please do one with MediaCat? Please & thank you.

I just got my usb drives delivered today and was just about to make my boot drives with the help of your older video when I happened across this video first. Thank you.

Thanks for the video!

Thank you for this advice

3:19 _"win8: u'll have to download iso files [dierctly]"_ thats nice actually. use it with rufus FOSS utility in windows.

I thought just 1 created with Ventoy with Windows iso and Hirens iso was sufficient?

Thank you.

10:46 there're other things like medi-cats and linux that u can use... glad u shaerd this (:

Ventoy is a superior option, and you only need one drive for multiple OS options.

What's the difference between Media Creation Tool off the website and 'Create a Recovery Drive' within Windows itself? Thanks, great info.

My PC would not automatically change the Rufus target system window to Bios or UEFI by simply choosing the ios file, I had to click and drag the file over to the Rufus window in order to get it to change. I say this for whomever might encounter this problem plus if you click Alt-E more then once it toggle's back to disabled or enabled so watch for that too. Thanks for the video it's appreciated much.

Rufus is different for me, I did the target system (BIOS or UEFI), now I click GPT - "Target System" changes to "UEFI (non CSM)" ... The only way to keep the Target System to BIOS or UEFI is to choose MBR

I will use this when I am ready to go to Windows 11 Enterprise edition. That's the ONLY way I will upgrade 11 for obvious reasons.

You made a Ventoy video a few months ago which I really appreciated but I'm confused as to why this video is instructing us to make separate usb drives and not mentioning Ventoy

Please do make full tutorial on medicat usb .

Hi, thanks for the great video. I have been subscribed for a few months now and have learned a hell of a lot. One question I have always wondered, are paid versions of antivirus tools much better than their free counterparts? While I don't mind paying to keep my PC secure, I think the best price is always free. I'm Scottish so that should tell you all you need to know haha

hi hello I have some questions Does the USB drive I use for this have to be empty? And how much storage do I need exactly? And is it possible to do all the software in one usb drive? I will appreciate your response

Hi, does combing these troubleshooting softwares on a single pen drive using Ventoy do the trick? Or do you suggest having two separate pen drives as demonstrated here?

following your directions to the tee and none of those screens pop up. **** I was able to get the first USB disck to work and I loaded the rufus file and hiern file. When I launched rufus it doesn't have anything in the first box to select (ie the drive) Im stuck at this point

Do one for windows 11 because i The procedure is different that windows 10

Do we now need three USB sticks one for Win 10 one for Win 11, and one for Hiren's fantastic Videos by the way great work

As of windows 10 my computer did never crash or gave me bluescreen , The IHrens cd i used way back , but never need it anymore, windows can repair itself

I like to use NTFS, then he formats as exfat😂

I made these… forgot where I put them 😂😂😂

Now I am confused. Which method is better for a non tech, Ventoy (in your previous video) or Hirens in this video? It seems like you went from a Hirens preference, to Ventoy, then back to Hirens?

I’m assuming this has to be done now for this process to work properly ? Vs just downloading the Microsoft tool and doing it that way

why not use ventoy to put BOTH iso on ONE flash drive

Do you save the HBCD_PE ISO on the external flash drive? Or only Rufus?

hiren comes in handy if your window caught some virus or file corruption.

thanks for the info about creating a win 11 bootable usb drive. needed this because hiren DESTROYED my system. hiren is a windows nuclear bomb.

so when creating the HIRENs you said you can choose MBR or GPT, you said use GPT for Windows 11. So might I surmise then that you are suggesting that we create two different HIRENS USB drives? One for WIN-10 as an MBR and one as a WIN-11 as a GPT? I simply did the MBR like you did on the video for the HIREN's USB Flash-Drive creation following your steps. DO I need to do a whole other Hiren's USB Flash-Drive creation using GPT? SO then in my bag-of-tricks I actually have two HIRENS flash-drives, or no?

I have 2pcs, one with w11 and the other one with w10, I'm gonna need 2usb right? the one for w11 with gpt partition scheme and mbr for w10... Is there no alternative to using the same hirens on both operating systems? Thx for the video is very useful

I prefer Ventoy instead of Rufus. It makes keeping multiple ISOs offline very easy.

When I start to create the Hirens USB following your exact instructions, a few seconds into it, I get a “failed access denied”. Tried a different (new) USB - same thing. Created a simple partition on the USB it was read/write capable - get same fail. Windows 10. Dell Precision 3141 SFF. Made the Win 10 boot USB with the creation tool OK. Anybody else having a problem making the Hirens bootable?

My boot selection does not have "use Rufus MBR with BIOS ID" What now?

I eventually created the two USB drives, but found the explanation a bit rushed and some of the steps were glossed over. Hope I never have to use them though.

I consider to install Windows 10 to an external SSD because I want to transition to Linux but want to keep Windows for things I can't do with Linux. Is that fine?

hello sir i have a small problem my pc is 64 bit and all was fine but recently somehow almost all programs and games have started to run as 32 bit .. is it something wrong with windows do i need to install a fresh one or is there a command to fix this ?

The Media Creation Tool is now separated from the tool used to install windows 11 onto an already running computer.

Hi Scott, thanks for the vid. I'm a long time Hiren's user. One of the features I used often with Hiren's 15.1 and 2 is the popup menu that you can access from the USB without having to boot to the USB. Rather, you plug the USB into a machine currently running Windows and run the menu. Is there anyway to use or enable this feature with the current version of Hiren's?