Installing windows from USB drive is one of the possible ways of installing windows. There can be many reasons for you to install windows from a pendrive, It may be because the problem with your DVD drive or probably you don’t have the DVD copy of the windows you want to install.
In such cases you can install the windows using USB stick provided that you have the copy of windows installation CD / DVD copy in the format of ISO or NRG . Installing from USB is faster and you need not waste a DVD disk just for the sake of installing.
Note : your motherboard should support USB boot to install it from USB drive.
How to create a bootable USB drive ?
Application Way :
There are many applications in internet which will help you to create a bootable USB drive. Some of the applications are
1. Windows 7 USB / DVD download tool
We can use any one of these applications to create a bootable USB drive. As part of illustration let us try creating bootable USB drive using Windows 7 USB / DVD download tool, It is the official tool by Microsoft to address the need for installing windows from USB drive.
Note : Windows 7 USB / DVD download tool needs to install .NET Framework 3.5 in windows 8 as .NET Framework in windows8 is updated to 4 , If you try to install this tool in windows8 it will ask you to install .NET 3.5 along with it.
1. Download and install Windows 7 USB/DVD tool from here and run the program. It will show a start screen like below screenshot which asks for the path of the ISO file.
2. Browse for the path of the ISO file and give it as input at this step and continue by clicking on next and it will take you the step where you can either chose to copy windows into a DVD or USB.
3. In the next step you see the options for selecting USB from the list of devices. Once a device is selected from drop down list you can chose to begin copying to start copying it will take some time to copy from ISO file to pendrive.
If you face any problems in installing windows 7 USB / DVD download tool , you can try the other two above mentioned applications.
Geek Way : Steps to Create bootable USB drive using Diskpart
Now let us do manually all the steps what the program is trying to do in the above way. Before proceeding please make sure that you don’t have any important files on your USB stick as we are going to format it.
1. Open command prompt with administrator privileges by typing cmd in search and holding “Ctrl + Shift” while opening command prompt or by right clicking and running it as administrator.
2. Assuming that you have plugged in USB , Open diskpart by typing “diskpart” as command.
- DiskPart is a text-mode command interpreter for you to manage objects like partitions, disks and volumes by using scripts or direct input at a command prompt.
3. Now we are going to select our USB disk.
- Since we have many disks on our PC, we in particularly have to select our USB disk. You can select USB partition by listing all the disks using “list disk” command and selecting one particular disk using “select disk <number>” command.
- As my pendrive is disk 2, I have used “select disk 2” command to select it.
4. Now let’s clean our pendrive to delete MBR, GPT or any hidden sector information in it. Using “clean” command the data on USB is marked as being deleted and will be over written when the new data is written or saved in the same location.
5. Now let us create a primary partition and format it assigning NTFS file system.
- A primary partition can be created using “create partition primary” command.
- Now select the only partition that we have created using “select partition 1” command and make it active using “active” command.
- Now let’s format the active partition assigning NTFS file system to it by using “format fs=ntfs” command.
6. Now insert CD/DVD onto your DVD drive or mount an ISO image to a drive.
7. Next step is to update the master boot code in USB so that it can boot from pendrive. To update master boot code execute “bootsect.exe” in windows installation dvd which will be in boot folder with following arguments.
<installtion_drive>:/boot/bootsect.exe /nt60 <USB_drive>:
8. Now Copy all the files in your windows installation disk to your USB drive and you are done, a bootable USB is created. To repeat here are all the steps in single screenshot
To boot from USB you have to enable boot from USB drive and set USB as first booting priority in your BIOS settings.
hope you liked reading this article, if you have any comments or queries please give us a comment.
