Those of you who no longer believe optical drives are essential or own a netbook or similar device without a CD/DVD drive might be left wondering how they would go about installing Windows without one. Relax, as all you need is a 4GB or bigger USB drive, flash or hard drive based.
Note: Not all computers support booting from a USB device, so make sure the computer you wish to install Windows on can support it before continuing through these steps. You should find this option in your BIOS. Please note that altering some settings in your BIOS could cause your computer to stop working properly or worse, so be careful.
There are 3 sections to this guide, the first if you are running a Vista or 7 PC, the second if you are running XP and finally the process of making your USB drive bootable for all operating systems.
Note: Make sure you backup anything on your USB drive first, as you will be required to format it.
What you will need:
For Windows Vista or Windows 7
Now that you have the above we can continue down the road of a faster installation through USB stick. As an added bonus, installing Windows from a USB device is much faster than via DVD. Here’s how you do it.
Step 1: First you will want to insert your USB drive into a Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer and wait until it is detected. It should be labeled as a Removable Device under Computer. Make a note of the drive letter of your flash drive, this is important in a later step.
Step 2: Now go to start and then in the search field type cmd but don’t press enter. In the menu that appears above the search box you should see cmd.exe, scroll over this and right click it then select “Run as administrator”. After the command prompt has loaded with administrator rights you are ready to continue on to the next step.
Step 3: Now in the command prompt you will need to find some important information about your USB drive and execute a series of commands so it can be used correctly as a Windows Vista or Windows 7 boot drive. In the open command prompt type DISKPART. This should execute the Vista DISKPART utility and should leave you with a DISKPART prompt, as below.
Step 4: Now you need to type the following commands. The first, LIST DISK will give you an idea of what DISK you need to select for the DISKPART utility. You will be presented with a list of disks on your computer. You will want to select the one that looks like it is your flash drive. Generally a 4GB will report right around 3822MB in size, could be more could be less. In my example, my flash drive is disk 1.
Now these steps below you will want to type one by one pressing enter after each line.
LIST DISK (see above for explaination)
SELECT DISK x (where x is the number of your USB drive)
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS (note that the format process could take some time to complete)
Step 5: Now after you are done running these steps go ahead and close the command promt, or type exit to leave DISKPART and minimise it as you will need it later. See the making your USB installation drive section below.
For Windows XP
Step 1: Windows XP does not have the DISKPART utility needed to make your USB drive bootable , so you will have to download a third party tool called MBRWizard! Once downloaded you need to extact the file. In this example we will extract the folder to the desktop.
Step 2: Format your USB drive by finding it in My Computer, right clicking it, then selecting format. Ensure NTFS is selected and the quick format box is ticked and click ok.
Step 3: Open the command prompt by going to Start > Program > Accessories > Command Prompt, or by clicking run on your start menu and typing cmd then clicking ok.
Step 4: Type the following commands
cd Desktop/MBRWiz2.0/
MBRWiz /list
Find your USB drive in the list that appears. If you only have one hard drive in your computer, it will usually be Disk 1, as in this example.
Step 5: Make your USB drive active by typingthe following, where X is the number of your disk from step 4 then close the command prompt.
mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1
Making your USB installation drive!
Step 1: You will now want to insert your media for Windows Vista or Windows 7 into your DVD drive, or if you have an image make sure it is mounted.
After this is done locate what drive letter your virtual drive or your media drive is. Generally the DVD drive is listed as D on most computers, however this could vary, so to be sure to go to Computer and find the drive with the Windows Vista or Windows 7 media pictured.
You will need to find the drive letter of your USB drive, you can find this in My Computer.
On my computer, my installation media is located on my F drive and my USB drive is G.
Step 2: Now follow the steps below, pressing enter after each line:
F: (this is the drive letter of the drive with Windows installation files on it)
CD BOOT
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 G: (this is the drive letter of your USB drive)
Step 3: Now go into my computer and copy everything from your Windows Vista or Windows 7 media drive to your USB drive and you will now have a fully functional bootable version of Windows Vista or Windows 7 on your USB drive.
Step 4: If you have made it this far congratulations as your drive should be fully functional. The last step is to enter your computers bios that you plan to install Windows Vista or Windows 7 with from the USB drive and change the boot device order to the USB drive or Removable Media/Removable Device. If everything worked for you, give yourself a pat on the back you deserve it!
Originally posted by killap4oc here: http://forums.eteknix.com/showthread.php?t=1418
Edited and expanded by Thinharder (David McCann)
I’m not sure if this free trial is for me. I tried several times to download but its more for IT users etc. I thank you for the info but think that I wont be able to get this free trial.
Or you could just use Microsoft’s own USB/DVD boot tool.
http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool
Thanks for the comment!
It’s not the partition you need to be marking as active but the MBR. Computer Management can’t do this and therefore you can’t create a bootable USB drive in Windows XP without a third party program, with the one in my guide being the most popular. If you try doing it the way you suggest, the bootsect command fails.
First of all, XP does have the diskpart utility, but flash drives don’t show up in it for some reason.
You can format a USB drive to NTFS from within XP without having to download a 3rd party program. Go to the device manager, find your USB drive and double click on it. Go to the Policies tab and select “Optimize for performance.” Now go to “My Computer,” right click the drive and select format. You’ll now have the option to select NTFS under File System. Format it as NTFS, then go to the Computer Management (right click “My Computer” and select manage). Select the Disk Management on the left, find your USB drive’s partition, right click it and select “Mark Partition as Active.”
Now you just need to copy the contents of your CD to the flash drive and run the bootsect /nt60 command.