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How to Install Windows 7 From a USB Drive

Submitted by on Friday, 24 June 201161 Comments

Installing Windows from a USB flash drive has several advantages - First of all, the overall speed of the installation process will increase significantly, carrying a USB stick is much more convenient than a DVD, and finally it becomes possible to install the OS even on those systems that do not have a DVD drive, such as a netbook.

In this post, I will show you how to load the Windows installation on to your USB flash drive and make it bootable just like the DVD.

Tools Required:

  1. USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.

  2. Windows 7 set-up DVD.

Now, just follow the below steps:

Step-1:

Plug-in your USB flash drive and backup all the existing data in it.

Open the command prompt. If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights.

ie: Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.

Step-2:

In the command prompt, type in the following command:

DISKPART

This will start the Microsoft DiskPart utility as shown below:

Step-3:

Now issue the following command:

LIST DISK

This will show you a list of available disks on your system. Disk 0 is usually the hard disk. In my case, Disk 5 is the USB drive (this can be a different one in your case). Now issue the command as shown below:

SELECT DISK 5

NOTE: In the above command, 5 is the USB drive number on my system. If you have a different number on your system, then you need to replace 5 with that number.

Step-4:

Now issue the following list of commands one by one as shown below:

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK

ASSIGN

EXIT

Minimize the command prompt and proceed to the next step.

Step 5:

Insert the Windows 7/Vista installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my case, it is “H:”. Now type the following list of commands as shown below:

H: CD BOOT

CD BOOT

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 M: (NOTE: M: is your USB drive letter)

EXIT

Step-6:

Copy the contents of your Windows 7/Vista installation disk into the USB flash drive.

That’s it! Your USB stick is now ready to boot and install the OS for you. Don’t forget to enable the “USB Boot” option and change the “boot priority to USB device from hard disk” in your BIOS settings.

I hope you like this post. Pass your comments to express your opinion. :)



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61 Comments »

  • siva_phd9 said:

    A VERY GOOD INFORMATION.THAN YOU VERY MUCH FOR SHARING

    - 24 June 2011 at 6:45 PM
  • DP said:

    in d first paragraph…it should be netbook not notebook since notebooks have CD/DVD drives while netbook does not…as far as i know….

    - 24 June 2011 at 7:50 PM
  • mithilesh shaw said:

    HEY SRIKANT IN STEP 3 : AFTER TYPING DISKPART USER ACCOUNT CONTROL SETTING IS OPENING BUT NOT AS SHOWN IN YOUR POST..AND IN CMD IT IS SHOWING AS FOLLOWS:-
    C:\windows\system32>DISKPART
    access is denied

    - 25 June 2011 at 12:54 AM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ DP

    Thanks for the correction. It was done by oversight and now corrected! :)

    - 25 June 2011 at 8:20 AM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ mithilesh shaw

    Make sure you’re logged in as administrator and have opened the command prompt with admin rights.

    - 25 June 2011 at 8:22 AM
  • Raman said:

    good post dude!!!

    - 25 June 2011 at 11:52 AM
  • Ravi said:

    Good One Frnd….
    Realy Good Trick….

    - 25 June 2011 at 12:04 PM
  • Darpan said:

    Will it also possible with windows XP with same steps?

    - 25 June 2011 at 1:23 PM
  • KKC said:

    hi!srikanth.you are seriously brilliant in computer field.i am following your site from past 1 year.i want to know what are you doing presently.Also please give me some valuable website addressess.
    thanks.

    - 25 June 2011 at 5:18 PM
  • Tausif said:

    Converting fat32 into ntfs of pendrive is problem the possibility of pendrive corruption is more

    - 25 June 2011 at 8:06 PM
  • Gaurav @ hackersfind.com said:

    hi…
    i am Gaurav Garg From hackersfind.com
    i like your web site or all available content but i like this post the most..
    thanks for providing this information in this open way..

    Regards
    Gaurav garg

    Keep Posting
    Have A Nice day

    - 25 June 2011 at 8:18 PM
  • mithilesh shaw said:

    yes srikant now it is working…thanks

    - 26 June 2011 at 12:30 AM
  • Rouve_Pofadder said:

    Interesting. I got it working. Thanks for your wonderful tutorial. I like!!

    - 26 June 2011 at 4:59 AM
  • K Shankar R Karanth said:

    a very useful information

    - 26 June 2011 at 6:44 AM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ Darpan

    No, not possible! Creating a bootable Win XP setup from a flash drive is a bit complex process.

    - 26 June 2011 at 7:06 AM
  • samsun said:

    COOL.IT.SOLVED.MY.PROBLEM.THANKS

    - 30 June 2011 at 12:32 AM
  • Kutty said:

    i lyk dis very much!!!!! bt i can’t understand clearly

    - 1 July 2011 at 12:08 AM
  • Sitheeq said:

    nice man thanks

    - 2 July 2011 at 2:38 PM
  • Harsh said:

    Amazing… really very useful post. thanks for sharing…

    - 2 July 2011 at 2:46 PM
  • Ajit kashyap said:

    i did not understand the step 3 .otherwise good post

    - 3 July 2011 at 3:31 PM
  • sanjeev said:

    there is software called Novicorp WinToFlash to do this it can even create bootable xp setup

    - 5 July 2011 at 11:51 AM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ sanjeev

    WinToFlash didn’t seem to work perfectly for me

    - 5 July 2011 at 12:50 PM
  • lucky said:

    i do all steps
    but in list disk only disk0 shows of that is my hard disk

    - 6 July 2011 at 9:51 AM
  • arcade said:

    Thanks a lot bro … :)

    - 6 July 2011 at 8:07 PM
  • sanjeev said:

    Sorry to say that WinToflash did no work i tried to copy win xp setup into it and tried booting it but nothing happened WinToflash still has the BETA tag so it is not perfect program .Hopefully someone else is having better luck with it

    - 7 July 2011 at 8:49 AM
  • Deepak said:

    It’s good to know this from ur site hope u will assist in such way in future too.

    - 7 July 2011 at 3:28 PM
  • jashan deep singh said:

    thanx a lot sirji… nyc one :)

    - 9 July 2011 at 11:13 PM
  • Arjun said:

    Haiiii…..
    Srikanth.. Surely…this is a great site…
    But one thing i am finding hard to digest here is that…i don’t see google ads …
    why is that so?

    - 10 July 2011 at 12:51 PM
  • Ankit said:

    We can also run windows on pendrive but it just writes upto 10000.
    After that your pendrive or usb will not write any thing
    i enjoyed this post :-)

    - 10 July 2011 at 8:15 PM
  • Smith Paghdal said:

    Good 1 Bro..

    - 12 July 2011 at 1:05 AM
  • kophyo said:

    I have tested that. Completed successfully. Thanks 4 all….

    - 16 July 2011 at 6:46 PM
  • mmee said:

    wow it worked 111110000%

    - 19 July 2011 at 4:55 PM
  • Suraj said:

    Thanx Friend I was searching For This Information

    - 22 July 2011 at 3:20 PM
  • Sudhanshu said:

    Very Very Useful to us…
    I am too much motivated with your post…
    Many-many thanks to you,,,,God Always Bless You…

    - 22 July 2011 at 7:52 PM
  • sam said:

    hi, after loading the boot code on flash drive, do we have to copy the windows 7 via dos or just drag and drop from my computer?

    - 28 July 2011 at 11:56 PM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ sam

    You can do it either way. It doesn’t make a difference :)

    - 29 July 2011 at 10:30 AM
  • Ralph said:

    Can you explain step 5 in detail; what it’s doing, why you need to do it? I’m curious.

    - 29 July 2011 at 1:00 PM
  • Ali said:

    hi… can we use the pendrive for the other purposes also, after making it bootable… means to transfering the data..

    - 29 July 2011 at 11:07 PM
  • Anurag upadhyay said:

    I like this post very much…! thank for sharing

    - 30 July 2011 at 1:16 AM
  • sam said:

    @srikanth

    thank you very much very informative keep the good work going :)

    - 30 July 2011 at 3:28 AM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ Ali

    Yes you can. Just create a seperate folder in your pendrive and have your personal data over there.

    - 31 July 2011 at 2:03 PM
  • Ivan smith said:

    Hey..gud job bro.

    - 9 August 2011 at 3:27 PM
  • Token said:

    Hi
    This is such a great site..
    I very very thankful to you for your information and all the content.

    - 2 September 2011 at 9:53 AM
  • abhijit said:

    a easy way to install.thank you………

    - 15 September 2011 at 12:39 AM
  • sanjeev rai said:

    its so great and fantastic idea . now i can boot win7 without cd.

    - 19 September 2011 at 12:00 PM
  • pal said:

    that is great

    - 20 September 2011 at 4:21 PM
  • ilan said:

    after typing bootsect.exe /nt60 m:( my removable disk letter)
    it is showing ACCESS IS DENIED

    what to do please reply

    - 24 September 2011 at 7:30 AM
  • Gyanu Singh said:

    this is working f9 frnd how can i login to this site please help me.

    - 28 September 2011 at 11:05 AM
  • shiv yadav said:

    nice post………..!!!!

    - 28 September 2011 at 4:37 PM
  • irfaaan said:

    ur website is awesome

    - 11 October 2011 at 1:57 PM
  • xyrian91 said:

    after you’ve completed all the commands in CMD, when copying the the OS files to the pen drive, some files wouldn’t copy to the disk.
    should I skip those files?

    - 26 October 2011 at 4:53 PM
  • Srikanth (author) said:

    @ xyrian91

    No all the files should get copied!

    - 26 October 2011 at 10:10 PM
  • Dharmendra Kumar said:

    nice trick,,

    @ilan - while running cmd, you must have administrative permissions, your problem is related to permissions.

    Keep it up..

    - 27 October 2011 at 2:10 PM
  • Deb said:

    @Srikanth..hey nice one…… thatnks…

    can u pls upload the way to install win-xp from USB….

    - 3 November 2011 at 1:36 PM
  • Ekant Sharma said:

    Hello Bruv,
    I love your website and it’s contents..
    I want one advice..
    Please will you help me over there..?

    - 12 January 2012 at 2:43 PM
  • Ranjit said:

    Does winsetuptousb works please let me know

    - 1 February 2012 at 4:42 PM
  • sandeep kumar said:

    when i choose usb drive to formate my operating system then it show message OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND .i do all process as your method PLEASE HELP ME

    - 3 February 2012 at 11:15 PM
  • shivu said:

    Hey Shri…Thanks for valuable post….keep posting all new tricks like this….thanks u

    - 11 February 2012 at 9:07 AM
  • Rahul said:

    hai sriki i have problem in removing the files from the pendrive that i created during the process told above. tell me something

    - 22 February 2012 at 2:26 PM
  • Nayeem said:

    wow….awesome…Boss….thank you for helping all…

    - 22 February 2012 at 11:20 PM
  • Aditya said:

    hi,
    I followed your steps, but later i realized i forgot to plug the pen drive !!!! that’s really silly of me! but i reached as far as “create partition primary” step, and then i realized in my pc out of 4 drives there are only two visible and i seem to have lost the other two, pls help me in getting those two drives back, or have i lost them completely? what should i do ?

    - 24 February 2012 at 2:04 PM