Saturday, October 22, 2016
How to create a Windows 7 USB installer – WITH PICTURES!
How to create a Windows 7 USB installer – WITH PICTURES!
How to create a Windows 7 USB installer – WITH PICTURES!
• What you will need:
• A copy of Windows 7
• A USB thumb drive 4GB or larger
• A computer running Windows 7
• Some time to kill (depending on your computer, this could take a LONG time)
NOTES:
If you are creating a 32 bit installer, you must do this from 32 bit Windows. The same is true for 64 bit. Also, this will not work on Windows XP, period. You cant make a Windows XP USB installer this way, and you cant create a Windows 7 USB from XP. Technically you should be able to follow this guide on Vista but Ive only tested it and can only guarantee it works on Windows 7.
Although 4GB should be more than adequate, not all USB drives are created equal. Some supposed "4GB" disks can in fact be as small as 3.6 GB, and you will not be able to copy the whole Windows 7 disk to the USB. 8GB flash drives are cheap enough that given the choice, you should DEFINITELY spend a couple extra bucks and save yourself a lot of headaches. However If you run into issues with the disk being too big and you dont have a bigger flash drive handy, Ive heard that you can trim down a Windows 7 disk using VLite, but every time Ive attempted it the result was a non booting disk. YMMV.
Part 1: Formatting your USB drive
There is more than one way to get this done, but Im going to teach you how to do it the hard way. It builds character... Besides, if you get lost, Im including pictures to help. This is the method that Ive tried and have found to work. If you have a method that works that is easier, by all means do it your way. I am aware of applications like Novicorp “Win2flash” but like I said, this is the method that works for me. Im just sharing what I know with people.
1. Open the command prompt (cmd.exe) with elevated priveleges by right clicking cmd in the start menu and selecting “open as administrator”
2. To prepare to format, you must first determine which disk you are using. Enter the commands:
diskpart
list disk
It will take a few moments and then print out a list of storage devices attached to your computer. Based on the size, you can figure out which one you are going to format. In my case, it is Disk 2
3. now youre ready to format. Execute the following commands:
select disk 2
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
You have successfully formatted your USB the hard way and now youre ready to move on the next phase. Note the letter that diskpart assigned to your USB drive (the autoplay popup will tell you as well) because youll need it for the next command.
Part 2: Making your USB bootable
This part is pretty simple. Basically you are using a tool called bootsect which will copy the necessary code to boot the Windows installer on you USB. If you copied the contents of your Windows 7 DVD onto some place on your hard drive you can just move to the oot directory where you copied it to. Otherwise you will need to switch cmd to your DVD drive, more than likely the D: drive.
1. Leave diskpart by typing
exit
2. Switch to your DVD drive and move into the oot directory
D:
cd D: oot
3. Execute the following command to make your USB bootable. Replace "G:" with whatever drive letter diskpart assigned to your USB drive.
bootsect /nt60 G:
Part 3: Copying Windows onto your USB
This is by far the easiest part of the whole process. Literally, youre going to drag and drop all of the contents of the Windows 7 DVD directly onto your USB drive. No command line necessary!
Once this completes, you are done. Eject the USB drive, plug it into your netbook and boot up. Make sure that you select booting from USB in your BIOS.
Available link for download
