2 replies to this topic

[Ztruker]

Good directions (with pics) here to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 7 from: Install Windows 7 from USB Flash Drive by Bob Buskirk which I've included below with some modifications and no pics.

First, place your Windows 7 DVD in the DVD drive, any version, and either X86 (32 bit) or X64 (64 bit). If you downloaded Windows 7 as a .iso file, you need to mount it or burn it to a DVD. Daemon Tools can be used to mount the .iso file. Once it is mounted make sure you remember the drive letter.

Next we want to prepare our flash drive. Windows 7 is about 2.5GB for 32bit and 3.2GB for 64 bit so you will need a flash drive at least 4GB in size. Once you have your flash drive plug it into your computer.

To find the drive number (not letter), click on Start then enter diskmgmt.msc and press Enter. Find the USB drive and note the drive number. It will normally be the last drive.

Now open up command prompt and type:

diskpart

The response will be similar to this:

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7600
Copyright © 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DELL-P370

DISKPART>

Now you want to list your drives. You should see the USB drive listed with the same disk number diskmgmt.msc showed you previously. To do that type:

DISKPART> list disk

This will list all of your connected drives, including card reader drives and USB. It will look something like this:

Disk ###  Status		 Size	 Free	 Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0	Online		  279 GB  1024 KB
  Disk 1	Online		   74 GB  1024 KB
  Disk 2	Online		  298 GB  1024 KB
  Disk 3	Online		 3824 MB	  0 B		<===== my USB flash drive

We will use 3.

Now select the drive by typing:

DISKPART> select disk 3

Now run the following commands…

DISKPART> clean
DISKPART> create partition primary
DISKPART> select partition 1
DISKPART> active
DISKPART> format fs=fat32
DISKPART> assign
DISKPART> exit

Now what we did there was create a primary partition on the flash drive, make it the active partition, and format it with the FAT32 file system. Simple enough right?

Now we need to make the flash drive bootable so it works with most system that support bootable USB media. This is not required fro all systems but doesn't hurt so is worth doing.

Enter the following commands. Note: j: is our DVD drive and r: is our flash drive for our use here, yours will be different.

j:
J:\>cd boot
J:\boot>bootsect /nt60 r:

The response will be similar to this:

Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

R: (\\?\Volume{b10cedf8-f889-11de-95a6-001111e11f77})

Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

Now we have to copy the files from the Windows 7 ISO or DVD. So either put the DVD in the drive or mount the image you have. As I said before make sure you know the drive letters of your flash drive and of the DVD drive you are using. Now open command prompt back up and type in this:

xcopy j:*.* /s/e/f r:

As above, J: is our DVD drive or mounted iso image and R: is our flash drive. The drive letters will vary for you of course. Once you type the above command in and press enter you will see all of the files being copied, just wait till it is completed and you will have a bootable Windows 7 flash drive!

There is one more thing you are going to have to do to get this to work. You are going to need to go into the BIOS of your computer and make the first bootable device the USB drive, or in some cases, press a Fn (F11 or F12 usually) key during boot to bring up the Boot Selection screen. Now just plug in your flash drive and install Windows 7.

Not only is this method convenient (carrying a flash drive is better than a DVD), it is much, much faster than installing from a DVD. This guide not only works with Windows 7 but will also work for Vista as well. Hope this guide has made installing a new operating system easier, stay tuned for more Windows 7 related articles.

Note: The bootsect.exe part of this tutorial is taken from How To: Install Windows 7/Vista From USB Drive [Detailed 100% Working Guide]

Edited by Ztruker, 06 January 2010 - 07:34 PM.

[maxcreigs]

This worked an absolute treat. Nice write-up. I did it on an XP box using Windows 7 mounted onto a virtual DVD drive. I had to do the format using the windows tools as wasn’t available as part of diskpart in XP. All the rest worked as described.

[Ztruker]

A much easier method has come to my attention.

First, download the X86 or X64 versions of Windows 7 + SP1 .iso image you have a product key for from here: Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River.

Download Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3 to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 7 with.
Start it then scroll all the way to the bottom and pick Windows 7 Installer from the dropdown.
Click Browse and point to the Windows 7 iso you downloaded.
Select the USB flash drive.
Click Create.

20 or 30 minutes later you're done and now have a USB flash drive you can isntall Windows 7 from.

If you have a Windows 7 Installation DVD you can use ImgBurn to create a iso from it for use in the above steps.

For you techies, you can create a complete (universal) x86/x64 Windows 7 install USB thumb drive (6GB or larger) as follows:

First, download the X86 and X64 versions of one of the latest Windows 7 + SP1 .iso images from here: Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River.. It doesn't matter which one you choose, Home Premiuum, Pro or Ultimate. They each contain all versions.

Following posted by SIW2 here: Creating a 2 OS thumb drive - Windows 7. I've made some changes for clarity.

1. Copy the contents of the x86 dvd/iso onto a partition. I used partition H. So I had a folder H:\GRM.... ( or a similar long list of letters). Rename the GRM... folder to x86 - that makes it easier. You now have H:\x86 as the folder.

Note: I used 7-Zip to extract the files from the .iso to H:\x86.

2. Copy ONLY the install.wim from the x64 installation media onto the same partition.

Note: Again, I used 7-Zip to open the X64 .iso file and extract install.wim to H:\x86.

Rename that to Win7x64.wim. You now have Win7x64.wim and the X86 folder in the root of the H:\ drive. You can use a folder to do this is, just less typing in the root of the partition.

3. Put a copy of Imagex in Windows\System32 folder of the o/s ( Vista or 7) you are booted into. You can download it here:
imagex16385.zip

4. Open an Elevated Command Prompt and type the following - press enter after each line and wait for it to complete ( it's quick) : Obviously, replace H: with the letter of the partition you have the files on

Imagex /export "H:\Win7x64.wim" 1 "H:\x86\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Home Basic (x64)"

Imagex /export "H:\Win7x64.wim" 2 "H:\x86\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)"

Imagex /export "H:\Win7x64.wim" 3 "H:\x86\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Professional (x64)"

Imagex /export "H:\Win7x64.wim" 4 "H:\x86\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Ultimate (x64)"

5. Delete the ei.cfg file from the H:\x86\sources folder.

6. Use ImgBurn to make a .iso from the H:\x86 folder. Use that as input to Universal USB Installer to create the bootable thumb (flash) drive as pointed to in the next step. The .iso will not fit on a 4GB flash drive any more. Used to before SP1 was folded into it. You can burn a DVD from it though.

7. You can now use the iso file as input to create a bootable flash drive using Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3. All editions of 32 and 64 bit can be installed from the flash drive as long as you have a valid key for each.