Have you ever felt the need to do a fresh installation of Windows on your system but don’t have a Windows installation disc? Or if you would like to install an operating system but Don’t have a DVD Drive to insert your Media installation disc? This problem is now very common since no one is now using a DVD drive to install Windows or even do other tasks.
In fact, using a DVD drive/disc has become a very odd thing for most people these days with computers taking a big turn away from them. If you are having the same type of issue then this tutorial is perfect for you. This topic is about Booting into windows 7 from a USB Flash Drive.
In this guide, We will teach you how to make a Bootable USB Flash Drive and Install Windows 7 on your computer. We have prepared a complete step by step guide about two of the most common ways that you can make a bootable USB flash drive and install windows from it.
Step 1: Create Bootable USB drive using Command Prompt (CMD)
One of the most common and easy ways of making a bootable USB flash drive is by typing a few commands into command prompt which enables your USB drive to be bootable on your PC. Follow the instructions below to make a bootable USB drive. This method is pretty simple and you don’t have to download or install any additional software on your computer. The only thing which will be needed is the operating system’s installation files.
Figure 1:The first thing you need to do is to go ahead and download your preferred version of Windows you want to install on your computer. If you already have a Windows installation disc handy and can copy the installation files from it, then, simply skip downloading another copy of Windows online.
Instead, use the existing installation files once your USB flash drive is made bootable. However, if you don’t have one with yourself simply visit this link to download Windows installation media directly from Microsoft. The download procedure is simply you just need to select the version of Windows you want to download. keep in mind that you will need a product key in order to download some certain versions of Windows like Windows 7 or 10. Once you validate your product key, all you have to do is download the version you want (meaning x86 & x64).
Figure 2: Once you have successfully downloaded the Windows installation media files, the next step is to open the Command Prompt (CMD) as an administrator. Opening CMD as an administrator is important because the procedure we are about to do requires you to have admin’s privileges otherwise, it won’t work. There are multiple ways to open the Command Prompt.
- Click on Start and Search “Cmd” or “command prompt”. Right-click and choose run as administrator.
- Press Windows+X keys together to open a menu on your taskbar. Now look for Command Prompt (Admin).
- Press Windows+R to open Run and Type in Cmd which will open the command prompt. This option does not open Cmd in admin mode but when you type the next command in the Cmd it should open a new command prompt windows with administrative privileges.
- Another infrequent way to launch cmd is to open task manager, click on “file” and click on “Run New Task“. Now type in “Cmd” and check the box below it that says “Create this task with administrative privileges“.
Figure 3: The next step is to connect your USB Flash Drive to the computer. Once it is connected to your computer, click back on the command prompt.
Command-List to Create Bootable USB Flash Drive
If you have previously used this feature before, and have trouble remembering the commands. The followings are the commands you can use without going through the steps one by one.
1: Diskpart
2: List disk
3: Select Disk
4: Clean
5: Create partition primary
6: Format fs=ntfs quick
7: Active
8: Exit
Figure 4: Type in Diskpart in the Cmd to open Diskpart settings. The Diskpart is a built-in utility that manages a computer’s storage.
Figure 5: Now Type “List Disk” and hit enter. This command will display all the connected and active disc drives on your computer.
Figure 6: Once you see all the displayed devices on your computer, Look for the flash Drive and Type “Select Disk 3”. Keep in mind that your computer is different from what we got and drive letters are also different. This means that you have to find the right disk otherwise you will end up formatting one of your other disk drives.
Figure 7: Once you have select the right disk, type in Clean to clean the drive.
Figure 8: Now type in “Create Partition Primary” which will create a new primary partition for the flash drive.
Figure 9: Once the system has created the primary partition, simply type in “Format Fs=ntfs quick“.
Figure 10: Now that your new partition is formatted, Type inactive in the which will activate the new partition.
You have now successfully created a bootable USB drive. Just type “exit” to close the command prompt.
All you have to do now is mount your Windows ISO image file and start copying all of the contents inside to the new flash drive you just made bootable.
NOTE: There are still other ways to create a bootable USB drive using command prompt but we have chosen the easiest way to simply create a bootable drive without going with advanced commands. If you want a more detailed way to do it, you can easily find them on the internet.
Step 2: Create Bootable USB Drive Using Windows Installation Media
Another convenient way to make a bootable USB drive is through Windows Installation Media. As you can see we have listed this as our second option to use for making a bootable USB drive. In this method, you won’t be needing the Pre-downloaded ISO file since the Windows media tool will do it for you.
Figure 1: First thing is to go to Microsoft’s Official website, Choose your preferred operating system and choose your preferred windows Operating system and click on it.
Figure 2: In this step, Click on the “Download Tool now ” which is written below Create Windows installation Media.
Figure 3: Now that you have downloaded the installation media tool. Launch it and you will see this page popping up. You will now need to agree to the Microsoft software license terms by clicking agree.
Figure 4: In this step, select the second option. The first option is if you want to upgrade your Windows to a newer version. Since we are creating a bootable Windows media, you have to choose to create installation media and click next to proceed.
Figure 5: As you can see, this page is all about the Language, Edition & architecture of the OS you will be creating in a moment. Go ahead and choose the options accordingly.
Figure 6: Now choose USB flash drive because we are going to be creating a bootable media and click Next.
Figure 7: Windows will now display all the removable drives here, Select the drive you will be using for your windows files.
Figure 8: The software will now start downloading the Windows files onto the drive you selected earlier. Just wait for it to complete.
Figure 9: The Software has now successfully created a bootable USB flash drive you can use to install Windows on another computer.
Here is a a screenshot of the operating system files that have been downloaded to the USB flash drive.
All you have to do now is to connect it to the computer you will be installing the operating system on and boot it into the USB flash drive to start installing windows.
Step 3: Create a Bootable USB Drive Using Rufus
Another popular method to create a bootable USB drive is by installing Rufus. There are a number of different software with which you can create a bootable USB, But the most popular of them all is The Rufus tool.
NOTE: Before installing Rufus, we assume that you already have a Windows ISO image file. If you don’t have an ISO file available, you can download it from their respective websites.
Figure 1: The first thing you have to do is to go ahead and Download Rufus if you don’t know where to download click on the link below which takes you directly to their website. Once the download is complete, go ahead and install Rufus.
Download the latest version of Rufus Here.
Figure 2: Now Plug in the USB drive, and launch the Rufus application. Once the application is launched, you can see the devices in the first top drop-down menu. Use it to select the right device which is the flash drive.
Figure 3: As we had mentioned before, you will need the Windows ISO image files pre-downloaded to your computer. In this step, we will have to insert the Windows ISO file. Click on the Select Button and navigate to the directory where you have downloaded the ISO files for your operating system and then select and click on open.
Figure 4: In this step, You will need to change a few things in the Partition scheme options. The first thing to change is the drop-down setting just below the partition scheme and select “MBR” and then change the next drop-down menu below Target system and Select “BIOS or UEFI“. The last thing to do now is to Tick-mark “Add fixes for old BIOSes (Extra partition, Align, etc.)“.
Figure 5: This next step is not very necessary to do and its more of an optional part. But it gives you more options to work with. Here, You can change the Windows label to anything you like. And if you want to have a quicker format and skip the scan for bad sectors simply tick-mark Quick format option in the advanced format options. You can let the other options stay as it is.
Figure 6: Now Click on the Start Button to begin the procedure. You will be prompted with a warning saying that All data will be erased from the flash drive. Just click OK and Rufus will now begin Copying the required files to the USB drive.
Figure 7: Once the procedure is complete, you will hear a sound that will indicate the procedure is complete. Rufus does not prompt you with a message other than the sound. Although you can check it by looking at the green bar which is now fully green and says ready instead of copying files.
And That’s all for making a bootable USB flash drive using Rufus. As you can see the procedure is really easy to do. If you have any questions regarding the topic please let us know in the comments.1*/9-+
