Create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS

Create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS



This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.

Required:

Step 1: Format the Drive

Plug in your USB Flash Drive

Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select \"Run as administrator\"

Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
diskpart
list disk
The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step. I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1.

Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number \"1\" with the number of your disk below.
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable

Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.

Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
d:
cd d:\\boot

Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\\ by the computer:
bootsect /nt60 g:

You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB

I use these instructions to put on Mini laptops with no disk drives load Windows 7 right on Smile
this is the only fool proof way to do it for me!

USB Flash Drive (4GB+)









Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)

A computer running Vista / Windows 7