Trust me... This one is Worth Checking Out.
I have always been a diehard unetbootin guy - or multisystem.
Ventoy has blown me away. It is like using Windows, then switching to Zorin.
2 Likes
I am so very sorry to hear yet again, we have another Etcher casualty in our ranks. Balena Etcher needs to stop being promoted as the go too, tool, for burning ISO's.
Rufus or Unetbootin, are the recommended ISO burners for Windows users.
And SWARF hasn't heard of Popsicle either. For folks who are already Linux users, and just want to distro hop like a rabbit, I recommend Popsicle.
2 Likes
Balena denies all responsibility and claims that it is impossible for balena etcher to kill flash disks:
In the very same post, however they cover how to recover a USB stick that balena etcher breaks.
Another thing Balena etcher breaks: Trust.
3 Likes
Hear, hear!!
1 Like
I find it quit funny that there are thousands of reports if not more and they still deny it's not their fault(s) ... 
Our team flashes hundreds of SD Cards a week while experimenting and deploying devices.
Guess with dummy sticks 
3 Likes
I believe Barena was originally designed to write a disk image to microSD. That how I install my RasPi OS and it never fail to write on microSD.
But micro SD and USB memory are different beasts.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander does not apply in this case.
2 Likes
Curiously, even after 2 USB sticks were lost, cheap USB stick were blamed not Etcher itself.
I lost 2 genuine Sandisk USB sticks to Etcher.
While those no-name USB sticks are fine with other writing apps such as Rufus and MintStick.
Circumstantial evidence still points towards Etcher for this destruction
Statistical analysis? Why does it happen so much more frequently with Balena Etcher than it does for Unetbootin or Rufus?
1 Like
Who's gonna put a bell on the cat?
I never had problems with Balena but it screams “Microsoft” to me. It took forever to image a USB.
Given the typical ~20 minute installation time of Linux distros, if I have to spend Windows-style time intervals to install Linux then I’ll get rid of the most obvious bottleneck. Suffice to say I only used Balena once.
1 Like
Some thing tells me you only use dd....
Actually, I learned about dd from your earlier post. I had to websearch to learn what it was 
.
But for bootable disk creation I use unetbootin or brasero (2 of my machines still have optical drives).
1 Like
Actually dd is a bit-by-bit copy so it is not very fast.
I use Mintstick now a days.
Less chance to make mistakes in GUI 
1 Like
@FrenchPress You are gived to me some humor about Etcher. On blog Zorin is advice using Balena Etcher and on blog Zorin websides was wrote 1 000 000 milion downloads. This is nice for a couple people creating usefull review. 
Yes, I am aware of that.
And I am still do not understand the logic behind.
Propably developers Tiger solution to used with etcher because is simple and for users who using windows and want trying Linux. It was tested. Wright?
1 Like
I also uses Windows but never used Etcher with it.
I always go for Rufus. Why Zorin groups recommend Etcher is beyond me.
In Linux, I write many microSD cards for RasPi and always used Etcher. For the reason I posted above, Etcher works much reliably with microSD cards than USB.
Everyone have choice what want to use creating live usb.
Sometimes for me this is a humor on websides and searching engine you can find people who asking for help here. I always thinking they are never do that or have problems how do that thy why novice user asking for that - of course with respectfull - everyone here starting begin with something and not going fast a eagle or one day building a Roma.
1 Like
In Windows I used Rufus for years, and than it starts to fail. Than I tried Etcher and it works. But also it fails few times ( not making bootable usb, just recovering USB ,switching it in normal state).
And everyone have a choice to choose which tool they want to use. There are a lot of tools for that ( Windows/Linux)
1 Like