Tag Archives: Bootable USB

Windows

How to Create a Bootable USB Drive

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Step 1: Using DISKPART command

  1. Insert your USB flash drive to your running computer.
  2. Run Command Prompt as administrator.
  3. Type ‘diskpart‘ on Command Prompt (without quotes) and hit Enter.
  4. Type ‘list disk‘ to view active disks on your computer and hit Enter and find the USB drive disk #.
  5. Type ‘select disk 1‘ (or whatever the USB drive is).
  6. Type ‘clean‘ and hit Enter to remove all of data in the drive.
  7. Type ‘create partition primary‘ and hit Enter. Creating a primary partition and further recognized by Windows as ‘partition 1‘.
  8. Type ‘select partition 1‘ and hit Enter. Choosing the ‘partition 1‘ for setting up it as an active partition.
  9. Type ‘active‘ and hit Enter. Activating current partition.
  10. Type ‘format fs=ntfs quick‘ and hit Enter. Formatting current partition as NTFS file system quickly.
  11. Type ‘exit‘ and hit Enter. Leaving DISKPART program but don’t close the Command Prompt instead. We would still need it for next process.

Step 2: Creating Boot Sector

Mount the ISO file to a drive.

Let us assume that the flash / USB drive is the D: drive and the DVD installer located on drive F:The first step, we will navigate Command Prompt to set installation DVD as its active directory.

  • (if you want to create boot from ISO file then, first thing to do is to mount the ISO of the Windows OS you just downloaded. Double-click the ISO file to mount it. Check the drive letter and make note of the drive letter).
  1. By default, Command Prompt’s active directory for Administrator permission is on C:\Windows\System32>. We will navigate Command Prompt to set on DVD (F:) as its active directory. Just type ‘f:‘ then hit Enter, and the active directory changed to F:
  2. Type ‘cd boot‘ and hit Enter. Active directory changed to F:\boot>.
  3. Type ‘bootsect /nt60 d:‘ and hit Enter. Creating boot sector on D: drive (USB flash drive).
  4. Type ‘exit‘ and hit Enter to close the Command Prompt. Until this step we have made a bootable USB drive successfully, and the flash drive is ready to be used as a boot media.

Step 3: Copying Installation Files

To install Windows from a bootable USB drive, we just need to copy the whole installation files contained on the DVD installer to flash drive. To do this, open the Command Prompt as in previous steps. Once it opens, type ‘xcopy f:\*.* d:\ /E /H /F‘ and then press Enter. Wait until all the files in the DVD installer copied to the flash drive. Now bootable USB drive is ready to be used for installing Windows from flash drive and you’re done !