Update: It is also solve the problem on Windows 11.

I am trying to burn an ISO file into a USB disk for installation. Most of the time, I am using Win32DiskImager to do the job.

But today, I can not start the Win32diskimager program. I uninstalled it and downloaded a fresh copy from Sourceforge and installed it. Still not working.

I have used it before and it is OK to launch.

So, I did research and found someone who has the same problem as me.

I downloaded Win32DiskImager from SourceForge, as was recommended in some Linux installation instruction (coming from Windows). The installer runs successfully and the program is installed into C:\Program Files (x86) as expected. When launching the program Windows prompts me to accept that this program can make changes, I accept and nothing happens. No service or process launches in Task Manger.

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The answer is quite simple.

It turns out that mounted drives can cause issues with Win32DiskImager. In my case Google Drive had mounted itself on the file system. Quitting Google Drive unmounted the drive it had mounted and then Win32DiskImager launched without issue! I also had a Linux ISO mounted (I believe Windows did this automatically after download, which seems odd) and had unmounted that as well before re-launching Win32DiskImager.

So I did the same way, right-click the Google Drive icon at the taskbar, and click quit to stop Google Drive temporarily.

Then, I run Win32DiskImager, it works.

David Yin

David is a blogger, geek, and web developer — founder of FreeInOutBoard.com. If you like his post, you can say thank you here

13 Replies to “Can not start Win32diskimager on Windows 10

  1. Yes it fixes the this problem… but after run it doesn’t see my linux SD card… ir requires a drive Letter…

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