Comments on: How to install Windows Vista or Windows 7 from a USB drive

By: foxfire39f

foxfire39f — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:01:27 +0000

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.

By: supertech

supertech — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:21:09 +0000

Or you could just use Microsoft’s own USB/DVD boot tool.

http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool

By: David McCann

David McCann — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:51:46 +0000

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.

By: jimnms

jimnms — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:35:07 +0000

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.