The latest Etcher is out, get it from https://etcher.io/!
This is a small release that fixes a couple of bugs accidentally introduced in v1.1.0, most notably, the fact that the AppImages version used in v1.1.0 didn’t play well with the elevation system in some cases.
Hello,
First, Thank you very much for the Etcher tool.
May I inquire about how Etcher determines what format to use please? If I am needing to format a USB flash drive using GPT for UEFI (for live distros under efi boot from Clover, to install to NVMe device), but am using Etcher on a legacy BIOS only system running under Clover UEFI, how will Etcher determine the format correctly? I normally use Rufus on Windows because it actually allows you to physically select the required format type, either MBR for BIOS or GPT for UEFI. This is very useful because people want to know something was 100% formatted correctly. With Etcher you are left wondering if it will write it correctly, and if the end result will indeed work for your scenario.
So, how does Etcher actually determine the format type needed? I like Etcher a lot, but I do not trust it because I have no input choices to select or any clue what it is doing. Is there any documentation on what it actually does when you hit the start button? Thanks
Rod
Hi Rod, Etcher copies the image 1-to-1 onto the drive, so it does not do any formatting or partition setup. If your image contains GPT, that is going to be written on the drive, if something else, then that. It’s a direct copy, hence there’s no input choices, there’s nothing to choose.
The purpose of Rufus is different, it’s to create bootable disks, and if that’s what you need, then that is the one you might have to use. See some more info in the user documentation.
Ok that’s an excellent explanation and exactly what I was hoping to hear. Looks like I will be using Etcher often under Fedora because I am getting tired of booting into Windows just to write an iso. I installed Windows into VirtualBox just so I could have the use of Rufus but even that is getting old.
I will start testing Etcher under my unique machine. I hope distro maintainers make it the standard go to tool for this type of use. I’m a distro hoping addict apparently. Lol
Thanks again for the information, the tool and the user documentation.
Rod
Are we allowed to submit a “feature request” ???
I’d like to ask that you add the “create bootable disks that are MBR or UEFI no matter what format the ISO contains”…
If you could, that would be awesome…
But thank you for Etcher either way! : )