Did you ever wish to install Windows with a Flash drive but don't know how? Here are a few quick and easy tweaks that help you to Create a Bootable USB Drive for installing Windows 7. You can also use this to install Windows on a friends computer with no CD/DVD drive.
1. Plug-in your Flash Drive. First plug-in your USB stick to your USB port and copy all the content to a safe location in your hard drive.
2. Run Command Prompt as an administrator. For opening a Command prompt go to the Start menu and type cmd in the search box. Right click on it and select run as Administrator to use it with admin-rights.
3. Using the Diskpart utility find the drive number of your Flash Drive. To do so, type in the following commands in the Command Prompt:
DISKPART
• Running DISKPART will display the version of DISKPART you are running, name of your PC. Run the following command.
list disk
• Your Disk Number will be listed and note it down as you'll need this in the next step.
• Let us assume that the USB Drive is Disk 1 but if it was listed as Disk 2 use Disk 2 instead.
4. Format the drive by executing the following commands one by one. Make sure you replace Disk 1 with proper Disk number.
select disk 1 clean create partition primary select partition 1 active format fs=NTFS assign exit
• When its done and if everything goes well , you should have a formatted USB drive.
5. Make the Flash Drive bootable by using the bootsect utility that is shipped with Windows 7. For doing so first insert the Windows 7 DVD and note down the drive letter of the DVD drive. Let's assume it as D: and that of the USB as G.
• Navigate to the directory where bootsect is found.
D: cd d:\boot
• Use the bootsect to make the USB Drive Bootable (ie Updating the drive with BOOTMGR compatible code) and for preparing it to boot Windows 7. Here, replace G: with the name of your USB Drive.
BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 G:
• Close the Command Prompt windows.
6. Copy all files from the Windows 7 DVD to the formatted USB stick. The safest and the fastest way would be to use the Windows Explorer.
• Change the boot priority at the BIOS to USB.
Warnings
• Make sure you motherboard is capable of booting USB drive, if not your computer won't be able to make use of this bootable device.
Article source: wikiHow is a group effort to create a great resource: the world's largest free how to manual. wikiHow articles help people solve their everyday problems. wikiHow licenses all content under a Creative Commons License. The license allows wikiHow content to be used freely for noncommercial purposes. The Creative Commons License also allows for the creation of derivative works.
More Windows Troubleshooting Articles:
• How to Fix Overheating Computer
• How to Fix Windows XP Errors
• How to Fix Winload Errors
• Stop Hard Disk Thrashing
• Troubleshooting Wireless a Keyboard or Mouse
• Video - Dell Laptop Motherboard Replacement Tutorial
• Video - Dell Laptop Optical Drive Replacement Tutorial
• Hard Drive Does Not Boot
• PC Troubleshooting - Symptoms of a Bad CPU
• Windows Don't Start Because of a Corrupted Registry