Unable to make bootable USB Flash Drive with Rufus 3.1

I don't know why but I am unable to make a bootable USB flash drive with Rufus 3.1. I remember doing it successfully a few years back but now I can't. I've watched several tutorial videos on YouTube, but still, it will not work. When I insert the flash drive into my PC or laptop and bring up the boot selection screen, and choose "USB Flash Drive", it's supposed to say something like, "Press any key to continue", but it doesn't. It goes directly to Windows 10. Is anyone here familiar with Rufus?

On Rufus 3.1 there is no prompt.
It boots directly to...whatever and if that's a Windows installation media, starts with typical Win 10 logo.
So, as it happened to me, you may be confused and stop installation.

Also, are you sure you have it properly configured for your hard drive & BIOS?

HeM said:

On Rufus 3.1 there is no prompt.
It boots directly to...whatever and if that's a Windows installation media, starts with typical Win 10 logo.
So, as it happened to me, you may be confused and stop installation.

Also, are you sure you have it properly configured for your hard drive & BIOS?

Yes. Everything's configured to boot the usb flash drive first. It still goes directly to Windows 10 on both the laptop and PC. I've tried this with two different flash drives (all 16 GB). Nothing seems to work.

I went back to Rufus v1.3.0.214 and it worked. No idea what's up with Rufus 3.1.

Hotsuma said:

...No idea what's up with Rufus 3.1.

Perhaps because, on v. 3.1 the default "Partition scheme" is "GPT" [UEFI (non CSM)] while in past versions were "MBR" [BIOS (UEFI - CSM)]. I hope you'd set it to "MBR" which includes both cases.

Anyway here, on an old laptop which does not know what UEFI is, Rufus 3.1 works fine.

Glad you've found the solution!

HeM said:

Perhaps because, on v. 3.1 the default "Partition scheme" is "GPT" [UEFI (non CSM)] while in past versions were "MBR" [BIOS (UEFI - CSM)]. I hope you'd set it to "MBR" which includes both cases.

Anyway here, on an old laptop which does not know what UEFI is, Rufus 3.1 works fine.

Glad you've found the solution!

I tried every combination that was available (for Rufus 3.1) and none worked. Rufus v1.3.0.214 worked for both the laptop and PC. It will also tell you whether or not if the .iso is bootable. Glad that's over!

I had the same problem. Mine was solved when I changed the File system from NTFS to FAT32