Flash the USB
Turn a normal USB stick into a bootable ZimaOS installer.
Before you click Flash#
Download balenaEtcher from its official website ↗. Insert an 8 GB or larger USB stick that contains nothing you need. Compare its capacity with the target shown in Etcher.
Every click in Etcher#
- 1Install and open balenaEtcher.
- 2Click Flash from file.
- 3Select the ZimaOS
.imgfile or supported compressed image. - 4Click Select target.
- 5Tick only the correct USB, checking its capacity and model.
- 6Click Select, then Flash.
- 7Approve Windows administrator access if requested.
- 8Wait for both writing and verification to finish.
- 9Close Etcher and safely eject the USB.
Windows may immediately say the USB must be formatted. Click Cancel. Windows does not understand every Linux partition, which is expected; formatting would destroy the installer you just made.
This optional video is background only, not the Etcher walkthrough. Video interfaces age quickly; the written instructions above are the maintained source.
If flashing fails#
The USB does not appear
Unplug it, close Etcher, reconnect it directly to the PC and reopen Etcher. Try another USB port. Check Disk Management. If Windows cannot see the device at all, try another stick.
Verification failed
Download the ZimaOS image again, try a different USB port, and reflash. A second verification failure on the same stick often means the stick is unreliable.
Etcher cannot open the image
Confirm the download completed and its extension matches the official release. If it is inside an archive, extract it using Windows’ Extract All and select the .img inside.