Etcher, the superior burning choice!

[pfeerick]

i do not hear people mention ubuntu image write very often, if ever-i can't remember. but it works and i have never had an issue with an image produced by it, nor any error messages during use.

Is that the GUI image writer tool built into Ubuntu? I've used that a few times and it seems to get the job done!

For Windows, if Etcher starts playing up, I switch to Rufus... it is a small download (less than 1MB), and is good for formating SD and USB devices, and also for writing disc images. In the attached screenshot, there are five steps shown. 

1) Select your device - it might automatically be picked if you don't have any other USB or SD devices plugged in.
2) (optional) Have Rufus automatically check for bad blocks / damage to your USB/SD card - a good way to check for counterfeit cards.
3) Tell rufus that you want to make a bootable disk...
4) ... using a DD image ...
5) ... then click this to browse for and select your image file.

Then just click the start button and watch Rufus go!