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 to Load Windows 7 Installation Files:
- USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.
- Windows 7 set-up DVD.
Now, just follow the steps below:
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.
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
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 Windows 7 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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A VERY GOOD INFORMATION.THAN YOU VERY MUCH FOR SHARING
DP says
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….
@ DP
Thanks for the correction. It was done by oversight and now corrected! 🙂
mithilesh shaw says
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
@ mithilesh shaw
Make sure you’re logged in as administrator and have opened the command prompt with admin rights.
good post dude!!!
Ravi says
Good One Frnd….
Realy Good Trick….
Will it also possible with windows XP with same steps?
@ Darpan
No, not possible! Creating a bootable Win XP setup from a flash drive is a bit complex process.
KKC says
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.
Tausif says
Converting fat32 into ntfs of pendrive is problem the possibility of pendrive corruption is more
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
mithilesh shaw says
yes srikant now it is working…thanks
Rouve_Pofadder says
Interesting. I got it working. Thanks for your wonderful tutorial. I like!!
K Shankar R Karanth says
a very useful information
samsun says
COOL.IT.SOLVED.MY.PROBLEM.THANKS
Kutty says
i lyk dis very much!!!!! bt i can’t understand clearly
Sitheeq says
nice man thanks
Amazing… really very useful post. thanks for sharing…
Ajit kashyap says
i did not understand the step 3 .otherwise good post
sanjeev says
there is software called Novicorp WinToFlash to do this it can even create bootable xp setup
@ sanjeev
WinToFlash didn’t seem to work perfectly for me 🙁
i do all steps
but in list disk only disk0 shows of that is my hard disk
arcade says
Thanks a lot bro … 🙂
sanjeev says
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
Deepak says
It’s good to know this from ur site hope u will assist in such way in future too.
jashan deep singh says
thanx a lot sirji… nyc one 🙂
Arjun says
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?
Ankit says
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 🙂
Smith Paghdal says
Good 1 Bro..
kophyo says
I have tested that. Completed successfully. Thanks 4 all….
mmee says
wow it worked 111110000%
Suraj says
Thanx Friend I was searching For This Information
Sudhanshu says
Very Very Useful to us…
I am too much motivated with your post…
Many-many thanks to you,,,,God Always Bless You…
sam says
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?
@ sam
You can do it either way. It doesn’t make a difference 🙂
Ralph says
Can you explain step 5 in detail; what it’s doing, why you need to do it? I’m curious.
Ali says
hi… can we use the pendrive for the other purposes also, after making it bootable… means to transfering the data..
@ Ali
Yes you can. Just create a seperate folder in your pendrive and have your personal data over there.
Anurag upadhyay says
I like this post very much…! thank for sharing
sam says
@srikanth
thank you very much very informative keep the good work going 🙂
Ivan smith says
Hey..gud job bro.
Token says
Hi
This is such a great site..
I very very thankful to you for your information and all the content.
abhijit says
a easy way to install.thank you………
sanjeev rai says
its so great and fantastic idea . now i can boot win7 without cd.
pal says
that is great
ilan says
after typing bootsect.exe /nt60 m:( my removable disk letter)
it is showing ACCESS IS DENIED
what to do please reply
Gyanu Singh says
this is working f9 frnd how can i login to this site please help me.
shiv yadav says
nice post………..!!!!
irfaaan says
ur website is awesome
xyrian91 says
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?
@ xyrian91
No all the files should get copied!
Dharmendra Kumar says
nice trick,,
@ilan - while running cmd, you must have administrative permissions, your problem is related to permissions.
Keep it up..
Deb says
@Srikanth..hey nice one…… thatnks…
can u pls upload the way to install win-xp from USB….
Ekant Sharma says
Hello Bruv,
I love your website and it’s contents..
I want one advice..
Please will you help me over there..?
Does winsetuptousb works please let me know
sandeep kumar says
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
Hey Shri…Thanks for valuable post….keep posting all new tricks like this….thanks u 😀
Rahul says
hai sriki i have problem in removing the files from the pendrive that i created during the process told above. tell me something
Nayeem says
wow….awesome…Boss….thank you for helping all…
Aditya says
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 ?