Installing Windows Using a USB Flash Drive

A very simple and easy 100% working process for installing windows 7 or windows 8 operating system by using a bootable USB flash drive in your PC.

Many of you are still Windows XP, and sooner or letter you will need to upgrade to windows 7 or windows 8. Even windows 7 users are upgrading to windows 8. Microsoft announced the release of windows 8.2 and windows 9. So, you need to install windows OS and the fast and best way is to use a bootable USB flash drive. Most motherboard these days supports USB booting.

We are going to show you how to install Windows 8 or Windows 7 via a bootable USB flash drive. There are many utilities available for this but most of the do not work or requires you to buy the software.

But this is a simple 100% working method for installing windows for USB flash drive.Before we start you will require for these;

• You operating systems (i.e., Windows 8, Windows 7) DVD or ISO file,
• A 4+ Gigabyte USB flash drive,
• A PC with Windows 8, Windows 7, or Vista as a Operating System in it.

Now before starting the process you should backup the files of your flash drive because it needed to be formatted. Both will work but for a faster result having an ISO file will help. So do as these following steps;

Step-1 : Connect your USB flash drive to your PC. Make sure to you backup you files.

Step-2 : Now go to Start, ALL Programs, Accessories. You will find Command Prompt; right click on it and select “Run as administrator”. If User Account Control (UAC) prompts than click Yes. Or; type CMD the Start menu search box and hit CTRL + SHIFT + Enter.

Step-3 : Now in the Command Prompt type DISKPART and hit Enter, you will see following message like the following message;

Step-4 : Now, type LIST DISK and hit Enter. You will see a list of disk connected to your computer, and identify you flash drive on the list. Here our USB flash drive disk is disk number 1.

If you cannot see you USB flash drive on the list then reconnect the flash drive and follow above steps again.

Step-5 : Now type these command and hit Enter in the given order,

• SELECT DISK 2
  (Put your desired disk number according to step 4)
• CLEAN
• CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
• SELECT PARTITION 1
• ACTIVE
• FORMAT FS=NTFS
  (Formatting could take several minutes depending on the size of your flash drive, so be patient)
• ASSIGN
• EXIT

Now the flash drive is bootable but the work is only half done.

Step-6 : Now on the command prompt and type the following commands and hit Enter

• I: CD BOOT and hit Enter.
  Here ; ‘I‘ the drive letter of your DVD or mounted ISO; If you have a bootable DVD of windows operating system (i.e., Windows 8, Windows 7) then inset it into the optical (DVD/CD) drive.Or; if you have a ISO files of the Windows than mount it. In both cases you must note down the drive letter because we will need it after this step.
• CD BOOT and hit Enter.

Step-7 : Now find the drive letter of the USB flash that you are using for this purpose, can be found in the explorer. Do not disconnect or make changes to the flash drive. Just note down the drive letter of the flash drive.

Now in the Command Prompt, Type BOOTSECT/NT60 H: ; here ‘H’ is the USB flash drive letter and make sure you properly type.

Step-8 : Now go to the mounted ISO files of Windows or to the DVD in the optical drive. Simply copy all contents to the USB flash Drive. Go to command prompt and type EXIT, and close it. That’s it you have a bootable flash drive for installing windows.

Step-9 : Most important step; where you are going to install for the bootable USB flash drive that you just make; you will need to;

• Enable USB boot feature in the BIOS
• Or, Open boot menu before the operating system starts loading.

That’s it done, if you are facing any problems then let us know via the comments make sure to share this with your friends.