Everything Flint does

Flashing

Drag and drop an ISO or DD image into the window, or browse for it. Flint computes a SHA-256 hash of the image up front — that hash is the reference used to verify the drive afterwards. A sidecar file (image.iso.sha256) next to the image is also read and validated before flashing.

Writes go directly to the physical disk (not through a mounted volume), so hybrid ISO images, hidden partitions and boot structures survive intact.

Verification

After writing, Flint re-reads the entire drive and compares its SHA-256 hash with the image hash. Anything that doesn't match is reported with exact mismatch offsets, so a bad flash is a reported event, not a mystery.

• Full-drive SHA-256 read-back with mismatch offsets.
• Bad-block scan that retries unreadable sectors and reports their locations.
• Whole-drive scan (flint scan) reads every sector to catch pre-existing media defects before flashing.
• Verification can be skipped for image formats that can't be compared sector-for-sector (reported, never silent).

Drive wipes

Wipe a drive to a recognized standard. Whatever you choose, Flint finishes every wipe by reading the drive back and confirming the final pattern — a wipe that isn't verified is reported as failed.

Expert mode

For images that need non-default write settings, expert mode exposes the full imager options:

• Partition scheme — MBR, GPT or auto.
• Target system — BIOS/legacy, UEFI or both.
• Filesystem — FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT or none.
• Write mode — raw/dd-style, ISO hybrid or Windows To Go.
• Persistence — reserved persistent storage for Linux live images (e.g. Ubuntu/Debian live sessions). Keep your changes across reboots.
• Windows To Go — create a Windows image for booting a full Windows environment from USB.

Backup & clone

Two drive-copying jobs round out the workflow:

• Backup — image an existing drive to a file on disk, with read-back verification of the backup.
• Clone — copy one drive onto another drive, verified afterwards so a fleet rollout can be trusted.

History & reports

Every flash, wipe, backup and clone is recorded in flash history with timestamps, drive details, duration, average speed and verification outcome. Reports can be viewed, exported or imported.

• Per-operation flash reports with all the details.
• Export/import history as JSON or CSV for record keeping.
• One-click Export diagnostics: bundles app version, drive list, history and logs into a single text file — paste it straight into a bug report.

Flash queue

Build a list of images on the Flash screen and flash them one after another to the same drive. Each entry is marked pending → flashing → done, and the queue stops on the first failure — a bad image can never silently poison the rest of a batch.

The CLI queue file supports quoted paths, inline comments, and resolves relative paths against the queue file's directory.

Compressed images

Flash compressed images directly — .zip, .gz, .xz, and .zst files are transparently decompressed on the fly. No need to extract before writing.

Dry-run mode

The --dry-run flag (available on flash, wipe, and clone) previews the operation without writing a single byte. See exactly what would happen — target drive, image size, estimated time — before committing.

Resume interrupted writes

If a flash is interrupted (power loss, disconnect), the --resume flag picks up where it left off instead of starting over. Flint tracks the write position and continues from the last confirmed sector.

Windows 11 TPM bypass

The --bypass-tpm flag (and expert mode toggle) patches boot.wim on the USB drive to skip Windows 11 TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and RAM checks during setup. Requires file-copy mode — if raw DD is selected, Flint auto-switches. Works with both normal file-copy and Windows To Go writes.

System disk protection

Flash, wipe and clone refuse to target the drive your operating system is running from — the one mistake that turns a working machine into a brick is blocked before anything is written.

Counterfeit-drive detection

The --check-fake flag probes a drive's reported capacity before flashing or backing up. A non-destructive read at the end of the advertised size catches drives that silently stop storing past their real capacity — and a destructive write-back verify mode confirms mismatches with certainty.

Linux ISO auto file-copy

In auto write mode Flint detects Linux images (Ubuntu, Fedora, and friends) and switches to file-copy so Windows Explorer can read the finished drive — the same behaviour as Rufus — while hybrid ISOs still get written raw to preserve their boot record.

Auto-eject after write

An optional setting in Settings → Behaviour ejects the drive automatically the moment a flash succeeds. Off by default — flip it on for high-throughput media creation workflows.

Drive health & benchmark

Scan results now include a drive health percentage — a quick overview of how many sectors are readable vs. failing. The built-in benchmark (core/benchmark.py) measures sequential read/write speeds so you can compare drives and spot fakes.

Settings export/import

Export your settings to a JSON file and import them on another machine for fleet standardization. Theme, expert mode, verification options, buffer size — everything transfers in one click.

CSV history export

Export flash history as CSV for spreadsheet analysis, compliance reporting, or integration with inventory systems. Every field — timestamp, image, drive serial, duration, speed, verification outcome — is included.

Shell completions

Tab-completion for Bash, Zsh, and PowerShell. Run flint completions --shell bash (or zsh / powershell) and append the output to your profile. Commands, options, and live drive serials are all completed.

Verified updates

About once a week Flint checks the GitHub release feed in the background. New releases offer a one-click download of flint.exe that is verified against the published SHA-256 checksum before it's kept — a failed checksum discards the file. Manual checks run from the ⋮ menu.

Themes & accessibility

Three themes — dark (default), light and high-contrast — switch live from Settings and persist between sessions. An "Auto (system)" option follows the Windows light/dark preference. Everything that matters is keyboard-accessible, and destructive actions never rely on a single click.

Headless CLI

Everything the GUI can do, the CLI can do — for imaging labs and IT workflows. Multi-image queue included.

flint list                          # find serials first (no privileges)
DRIVE 1 USB Stick serial='4C530001270509112345' size=16GB letters=E path=\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE3
flint flash  --image C:\images\ubuntu.iso --drive E: --confirm 4C530001270509112345
flint verify --drive E: --sha256 0a4b8c… --image C:\images\ubuntu.iso
flint verify --drive E:            # no digest: bad-block scan
flint scan   --drive E:            # whole-drive media defect scan
flint wipe   --drive E: --confirm 4C530001270509112345 --method nist
flint backup --drive E: --out C:\images\backup.img
flint clone  --from E: --to F: --confirm 4C530001270509112346
flint queue  --file queue.txt --drive E: --confirm 4C530001270509112345
flint flash-all --image C:\images\ubuntu.iso --confirm ARM --skip-flashed

Safety mechanics

Some habits that keep drives safe by default:

• Typed confirmation — destructive actions require typing the drive's identity, not just clicking OK.
• Physical-disk paths only — destructive ops refuse volume handles (like E:) and only accept whole-physical-disk paths.
• Recheck before write — the target drive is re-detected immediately before flashing so a swapped USB stick can't be hit by accident.
• Wipe verification — a failed read-back fails the wipe operation.