If you want to create a Live Ubuntu USB key from Windows, free utility Usbuntu does the job perfectly, but if you are looking for an advanced utility having the ability to create bootable live USB drives from a variety of Linux distro's UNetbootin would be the solution you are looking for, the free and open-source utility for Windows and Linux allows users to create bootable Live USB disks for a variety of Linux distributions, the utility can download a linux distribution of your choice or can be supplied with a Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded it or if your distribution of choice is not included in the list.

If you don't have a USB disk or can't use it for some reason UNetbootin can install on your Hard-disk as a Frugal Install which can come handy for loading system utilities like - Parted Magic, Super Grub Disk, Backtrack, Ophcrack, NTPasswd, Gujin, Smart Boot Manager (SBM) and FreeDOS to name a few.

If you are an fairly advanced computer user, at times you may need to boot from devices other then the default hard-disk, mainly to troubleshoot virus infections and other critical operating-system related issues, I had shared tips on how to make bootable cd for performing advance system tasks on windows. Today I will share few utilities enabling you to create bootable USB pen drives with ease, you need to have Motherboard/BIOS with USB boot support for this to work.

MakeBootable is an free and simple-to-use utility to make your Pen Drive act as a boot-up disk without erasing any data on the device. It consists of a single executable file and requires no installation, However the utility will only work on USB device's using Phison’s chip solution and FAT file-system only (you can re-format your drives to FAT easily).