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.
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