How to create a Windows 7/Vista bootable USB flash drive

[Moandor]

I was wondering it's time to make myself a bootable USB stick so I can use it whenever I need to install a fresh Windows 7 or Vista. However, I didn't find anything clear on that, so maybe if one of you geeky guys can share...

[Kyra]

I'm interested in this too...c'mon guys...a tutorial something?

[vexx]

Here's a tutorial on how you can create a Windos 7/Vista bootable USB flash drve:

Format the Drive
You will need to format the drive with diskpart from the command prompt. Keep in mind that will erase everything from the USB drive

Plug in your USB Flash Drive
Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
Find the drive number of your USB Drive using this command:
diskpart
list disk
As you can see, the number of your USB drive will listed there. Remember the drive number, you will need it to perform some commands. For me, the usb flash drive was disk 5 (see the attached screenshot)

screenshot.png

Format the drive by typing the next commanss into the same terminal window. Replace the number “5” with the number of your usb drive disk.
select disk 5
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit

When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Make the Drive Bootable
We will use the bootsect utility this time. The problem is that this command is found on the Windows 7/Vista boot cd. The problem comes when you want to create an USB bootable flash drive from an ISO image. I will cover both versions below:

From an ISO file
Using an archiver (I recommend 7-zip), enter the ISO image and copy all the files to the USB flash drive. Once you did that, you will have a "\boot" folder where the bootsect utility resides.

Let's say that the drive letter for my flash drive is G:
In the command prompt write this:
g:
cd g:\boot
bootsct /nt60 g:

and presto, you have a bootable USB flash drive

From a bootable DVD

Basically the same as above, only that you will need to go to the DVD's \boot folder for the bootsect utility. Let's say the DVD drive letter is I: and the USB drive G:

First copy all the contents of the DVD on the USB flash drive
Then at the command prompt:
i:
cd i:\boot
bootsect /nt60 g:

That's it! And oh, don't forget to check in BIOS that the USB drive is the first boot option in the list (otherwise it will take the DVD or HDD, whichever is first and has something on it to boot)

[Moandor]

excellent Vexx...great tutorial, thank you!

[alexe]

Great tutorial...made my day. Thanks!

[Cornelush]

Thank you ! It helped me a lot and i saved precious time!

[potatosRgr8]

Nice! thanks for the info

[JohnEric]

I found a tutorial at informationweek sadly can`t post urls yet
paste this after the dotcom slash"byte"slash"howto"slash"personal-tech"slash"storage-memory"slash"231000246
dont include "slash"

[JohnEric]

/byte/howto/personal-tech/storage-memory/231000246

better this one