How to make Windows 7 Bootable USB Pendrive

Hello Many of us face a lot of problem when we have to reinstall windows on our computer or laptop. First thing we have to decide from where to install windows? The options available are DVD or USB Pendrive. In the latest new netbooks, mostly there is no DVD drive. So if you want to install windows you have to go with the other option, i.e. USB Pendrive. So here I give a brief and 100% tested tutorial on how to create a Windows 7 Bootable USB Pendrive to install Windows 7 from USB Pendrive. First thing, you should check whether your BIOS supports booting from USB. Most of the computer/laptops support. But if your BIOS doesnt, then sorry, you cannot boot from a USB Pendrive. Second thing, you need another computer with Windows installed with a DVD drive, to copy its contents later. So let us start with the procedure now: 1) Run command prompt (cmd). This can be done by clicking start and typing typing cmd in Windows 7. In Windows Xp, click on start and then click on run. Type cmd and run. This will open the command prompt which will look like this:

2) Then run diskpart utility from command prompt, by typing diskpart on command prompt and pressing enter. This will run the diskpart utility in a separate windows, which is shown in 2nd picture below:

3) Now put in your pendrive in a USB port. Your pen drive must be atleast 4 GB, 8 GB pendrive is best for this purpose. Now go back to the diskpart console and type listdisk and press enter. This will list the various storage devices available. You can see the size column of the disk and here we can see that disk 2 is our pen drive. Warning: In your computer it may be some other number. In our case it is disk 2.

4) Then you have to type select disk 2 and press enter. Note: in our case it is disk 2, in your case it may be disk 3, or disk 1 or any other number. You can enter detail disk to see the details of the disk after selecting it to verify that you have selected the correct disk. You can see these steps in the image below:

5) Then you have to run a series of commands. The commands to be run in the order are:- clean - create partition primary - select partition 1 - active - format fs=fat32 NOTE: (If you wish to format your USB drive to another file format like NTFS then youll later have to run this command: Bootsect.exe/nt60 M: (there is a space in the command i.e. nt60[SPACE]M: ) to put boot manager compatible files onto your USB flash drive to make it a bootable device. Remember M: represents the drive letter your USB flash drive has been assigned by the computer and you should replace it with the drive letter of your device accordingly. My exhibit device is herein assigned M: . I however dont recommend this process of formatting to NTFS format) Give your computer time to format the USB flash drive as this could take a while.

These steps are shown in the image below:

6) The format step will take some time. You can have a tea or coffee in the meantime and come back. After the format is complete you have to run assign command. And after this you can exit diskpart utility by entering the exit command. The steps are shown below: - assign - exit

- The image below shows all the steps taken from the first step:

7) After the format is complete, put in your original Windows 7 DVD in your DVD drive, or if you have an .iso image of the DVD, mount that image using any virtual drive software like Power ISO. - Now go to My Computer, and open the contents of DVD Drive. Press ctrl+a to select all contents and copy all the contents by pressing ctrl+c. - Now go back to My Computer and open the USB Drive and press ctrl+v to paste all the contents of DVD into the USB Disk. Your drive has been successfully assigned a drive letter and mount point. Note the assigned drive letter, in my exhibit case it is M:\ , close the AutoPlay window then type exit in the cmd.exe window. You are done creating a bootable USB flash drive using the command prompt! The next step is to now copy the Windows 7 .ISO or installation files to the bootable disk. This can be done in 3 ways: Using a virtual drive mounting program like Power ISO, Ultra ISO, Daemon Tools Lite or Pro etc. to mount the file if you are using a .ISO file. Extracting the files from the .ISO file using an extracting program like WinRAR and simply copy them to the USB drive. This is the interesting part, the third alternative way is to use what we have been using all along, the command prompt - Open the command prompt once again with administrative privilege - Type xcopy f:*.*/s/e/f hm: (theres a space(s) xcopy[SPACE]f:*.*/s/e/f[SPACE]hm:) and press ENTER (Replace f: with the drive letter for your Windows 7 DVD (the one you are copying the Windows 7 installation files from or if you just had the .ISO file then the drive letter of the virtual drive where you mounted your .ISO file), and m: with the drive letter for your USB flash drive). Wait for the files to be copied. install.wim should take long to be copied to your USB flash drive since it is simply the largest of the Windows 7 installation files.

Installing Any Edition of Windows 7 If you have followed the steps accurately so far, then fear not, this is the last part of how to create a Windows 7 bootable USB disk. There are those Windows 7 installation DVDs that come with an option to select the version of Windows 7 you would like to install on your computer e.g. choosing between Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Professional 32-bit and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. This

simple procedure is to make sure that should you have copied your Windows 7 installation files from either of such disks, the bootable USB drive you have created should be able to give you the same option of choosing which operating system to install on your computer and not automatically install the first option by default. If you copied from a DVD that had only one version of Windows then skip this part and disregard the procedures listed below. In the command prompt type del m:\sources\ei.cfg then press ENTER (where m: here, as I stated earlier, is your bootable USB flash drive). NB: THIS PROCEDURE IS NOT NECESSARY SINCE BY COPYING WINDOWS 7 FILES FROM A MULTIPLE INSTALLATION DVD OR VIRTUAL DISK SHOULD MAKE YOUR USB FLASH DRIVE ABLE TO GIVE YOU AN OPTION TO CHOOSE WHICH WINDOWS 7 VERSION TO INSTALL.

That is the whole procedure

Another Method
Step1: Create Bootable USB Drive: 1. 2. 3. Start PowerISO (v4.8 or newer version, download here). Insert the USB drive you intend to boot from. Choose the menu "Tools > Create Bootable USB Drive". The "Create Bootable USB Drive" dialog will popup. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system, you need confirm the UAC dialog to continue. In "Create Bootable USB Drive" dialog, click "..." button to open the iso file of Windows 7. Select the correct USB drive from the "Destination USB Drive" list if multiple USB drives are connected to the computer. Choose the proper writing method. "USB-HDD" is recommended. Click "Start" button to start creating windows 7 bootable USB drive.

4. 5. 6. 7.

If no errors occured in the above process, you should now be all set to setup Windows 7 from USB drive!

Step 2: Configuring the BIOS: You should now reboot and go into the BIOS configuration to boot from USB. Instructions for doing so wildly from system to system, but generally entail the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. Reboot the system. While booting (before Windows starts loading), get into the BIOS configuration screen by hitting something like F1, F2, Delete or Escape. Hotkey instructions are generally provided on the screen. Go to the section that contains your boot devices. With your USB drive plugged in, the USB drive should be listed. If it isnt, your system might not support booting from USB. Assuming that it is supported (as is the case with virtually all modern hardware), promote your USB drive to the primary boot device. Exit from the BIOS configuration, saving all changes.

5.

If youre completely new to BIOS configuration, BIOS for Beginners over at Toms Hardware might be a good primer. Be aware though, that you can seriously screw up your system by providing incorrect settings!

Step 3: Booting and setup windows 7 from USB drive: Assuming that you properly configured your BIOS and your USB drive supports booting, Windows 7 setup should now load. Depending on the speed of your USB drive, this may take a while. If it isnt working, then double-check the following before making a scene:

Is your BIOS properly configured for booting from the USB device? (Is the USB device listed and does it have top priority?) Have you correctly prepared the USB drive in step one? (Restart the procedure.) Does your USB drive properly support being booted from? (Try another one!)

Note: The above guide works with Windows Vista / Windows 7 only. For Windows XP with SP2 or SP3 please refer to another guide athttp://www.poweriso.com/tutorials/how-to-make-winxp-bootable-usb-drive.htm .