How to create a bootable Windows USB drive

Updated: 05/02/2021 by Computer Promise

A common use USB flash drives is to use them to boot into Windows. Booting from removable media such equally a USB bulldoze allows you to perform diagnostics on a figurer that is having problem booting from the hard drive. This guide outlines making a bootable USB flash drive with Windows XP, Vista, or 7.

Note

The computer you desire to utilise your bootable USB drive on must be able to utilise a USB drive as a boot device. Most computers built since Windows Vista was released are capable of booting to a USB device. Before the Windows Vista fourth dimension frame, it's striking or miss with motherboards.

USB boot options in BIOS (CMOS) setup

To make up one's mind if a figurer is capable of booting to a USB device, access the estimator's BIOS and check the bootable device listing. If a USB device is listed, set the USB drive to exist the first boot device. If yous do not run into a USB device in the list of bootable devices, your BIOS is non capable of booting to a USB device.

  • How to enter the BIOS or CMOS setup.

Note

Y'all may need to take your USB flash drive plugged in when you admission the BIOS).

Windows Vista and Windows 7 users

To make a bootable USB drive for Windows Vista or Windows 7, you lot need to have Windows Vista or vii installed on your computer. Nosotros recommend you have a flash drive of at least 4 GB in size, to shop all the necessary files.

Tip

Before y'all start, plug in the USB drive and backup whatsoever files you lot have stored on the USB drive. The bulldoze is formatted during this process and all files on it are deleted.

Annotation

You need to accept a Windows Vista or Windows seven DVD for these instructions to exist successful.

  1. Open an elevated Windows command line window by clicking Kickoff, typing in cmd in the search text field, then pressing Ctrl+Shift+Enter on your keyboard (at the same time). You can also access this by navigating to Outset, All Programs, Accessories, right-click with your mouse on the Command Prompt menu item and select Run as Administrator.
  2. At the command prompt, type cd c:\windows\system32 to modify the directory to the Windows System32 directory. Ensure your USB drive is plugged in, type DISKPART, then press Enter. Type LIST DISK and press Enter.
  • See our diskpart control page for additional information on this command.
  1. A listing of the disk drives continued to your calculator appears. Find the disk number of your USB drive and blazon SELECT Deejay [USB deejay #], where "[USB deejay #]" is the disk # for your USB drive. It should now country the USB drive is the selected disk. If y'all're not sure what deejay is the USB deejay, eject the USB bulldoze, perform pace number two over again, connect the USB drive again, and compare the results. Usually, the USB drive will be the last drive.
  2. Blazon in the post-obit commands, one past 1, pressing Enter after each command.
Make clean
CREATE Sectionalization PRIMARY
SELECT Segmentation 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS

(may have a few minutes, depending on the USB drive size)

ASSIGN
EXIT

Proceed the command prompt window open, but you can minimize information technology for a picayune bit.

  1. You now demand your Windows Vista or 7 installation DVD. Put the DVD in your computer'south DVD bulldoze. Open up upwards My Calculator and annotation which drive letter is assigned to your DVD bulldoze and your USB flash bulldoze.
  2. Get back to the command prompt window and type in D: CD BOOT (substitute your DVD drive letter for D:, if necessary) and printing Enter. Type CD Kicking again and press Enter. Lastly, type BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (substitute your USB flash drive alphabetic character for H:, if necessary) and printing Enter.
  3. The last footstep is to copy the entire contents of the Windows DVD to your USB flash drive. In the My Computer window (opened in step 5 above), right-click the DVD bulldoze and select Open up to view the contents of the DVD. Copy all the files and folders on the DVD to the USB flash drive.

Your USB flash drive is now gear up to be a bootable USB drive for Windows Vista or 7.

Windows XP users

To make the bootable USB drive for Windows XP, your flash bulldoze should have at least iv GB chapters and need to learn a valid copy of Windows Server 2003 SP1.

Tip

Before you start, plug in the USB bulldoze and backup whatever files you take stored on the USB drive. The bulldoze is formatted during this procedure and all files on it are deleted.

Annotation

You need to have a Windows XP Professional person CD for these instructions to exist successful. Windows XP Habitation Edition does not piece of work.

  1. Install PE Builder on your reckoner. For the sake of ease, install the program to a C:\PEBuilder folder. Later you've installed PE Architect, create a folder titled SRSP1 in the PEBuilder folder.
  2. At present you need to extract two files from Windows Server 2003 SP1. The file name is quite long, and then nosotros recommend you rename the file to something shorter, similar WS-SP1.exe. Open a command prompt (Start > Run, type cmd, and press Enter). And then, use the cd command to modify to the binder where you downloaded the Windows Server 2003 SP1 file. For instance, to change to the c:\downloads folder, run cd c:\downloads. Then, type WS-SP1.exe -x to excerpt the files. A window should open asking where to excerpt the files. You lot tin enter the same folder where the file was downloaded.
  3. A new folder titled "i386" is created past the extraction process. Type cd i386 to change to that folder. Y'all at present need to copy the setupldr.bin file to the SRSP1 binder you created in the PE Builder folder. Type copy setupldr.bin c:\PEBuilder\SRSP1 to copy the file.
  4. Expand the ramdisk.sys file to the SRSP1 binder. Blazon expand -r ramdisk.sy_ c:\PEBuilder\SRSP1
  5. Open My Computer and navigate to the c:\PEBuilder\SRSP1 folder and verify the two files are in that location.
  6. Next, you lot need to create a compressed version of Windows XP using PE Builder. Make sure the Windows XP Professional CD is in your computer's CD bulldoze, then launch the PE Builder programme. In the Source field, type in the drive alphabetic character assigned to your CD Bulldoze (you lot can check in My Computer if you are not sure) (east.g., "d:"). In the Output field, type BartPE. Make sure the None option is selected in the Media output section. Then click the Build push.

Bart PE

A progress written report shows the progress of the bootable image build. When the build procedure is complete, click the Close button.

  1. Now, you lot can create the bootable USB flash bulldoze. Open up a command prompt over again and blazon cd c:\PEBuilder to change to the PEBuilder binder. Brand sure your USB bulldoze is plugged in to your computer. And so, type pe2usb -f e: (change "e:" to the bulldoze letter of the alphabet assigned to your USB wink drive, if necessary) to create the bootable drive. When prompted to begin the process, type Yeah. When the process is complete, press any key to leave the program.

Your USB flash drive is at present set up to be a bootable USB drive for Windows XP using the Bart PE interface.