How-To: Make a Bootable USB Key
PrintA bootable USB key is a convenient way to install operating systems on netbooks without optical drives, or carrying around a Live OS with you at all times. It especially makes sense if you're installing software on a machine that otherwise has no need for an optical drive, such as a Windows Home Server. Here’s a definitive guide to making a bootable USB key with either Vista or Windows 7 in just 9 steps.
1. Find and right-click the Windows Command Prompt in your Start Menu and choose to run it as an Administrator.
2. At the prompt, enter diskpart to launch Microsoft’s disk management utility. The command line should now read “DISKPART>”.
3. Type list disk to show a list of all disk drives. If your USB key is plugged into your PC, it should be listed here, along with other physical drives. Note the USB key’s disk number – you can pick it out by looking at the disk capacity.
4. Type select disk #, with the USB key’s disk number in place of #.
5. Type clean for the utility to clean the disk, which DiskPart will confirm.
6. Create a new bootable partition by entering create partition primary.
7. Choose this partition with select partition 1, and then mark it as active by typing active.
8. Format the key by inputting format fs=fat32. This should take a few minutes, and DiskPart will display a progress percentage.
9. Lastly, type assign to give this USB key a drive letter. Close the DiskPart program using exit.
You can now copy your OS’s installation files from the original DVD onto the key. We also recommend copying your hardware drivers onto the same key so the OS installation wizard can find them.
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Meat_Popsicle
January 10, 2012 at 8:45pm
So I'm doing this with a 300GB Western Digital "Passport" thing and I have a question. Will this be reversable? Or will it just be a 300GB hard drive with Windows 7 on it forever?
Compaqsonly
January 25, 2011 at 9:49pm
This is such an awesome a informative post. I have it bookmarked cuz I keep forgetting all the steps.
I would like to add that on my Win7 Pro x64 the diskpart required me to code as follows:
- LIST DISK
- SELECT DISK #
- CLEAN
- CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
- SELECT PARTITION 1
- ACTIVE
- FORMAT FS=FAT32
- ASSIGN
Compaqsonly
December 23, 2010 at 9:07pm
Why is MaxPC allowing all this worthless spam on their comments? Shouldn't we be trying to solve problems and learning other than being spammed? It's hard to find the helpful comments amongst all the worthless ones.
Domains
December 20, 2010 at 10:39am
Let's make this page more relevant to BIRMINGHAM, huh?
Submitted by Birmingham Hotels on March 15, 2004 - 1:45pm.
jen147
September 10, 2010 at 3:02am
This is really a nice post, that you have updated us with all of nice information that can be very useful for future aspect
copec
December 02, 2009 at 10:13am
In regards to the U3 flash drives:
If you run the launchpad removal tool it will turn it into a 'normal' usb flash drive.
http://apac.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1415
1337Goose
October 09, 2009 at 4:55pm
The XP version of diskpart doesn't pick up on USB drives?
~Goose
nsvander
October 11, 2009 at 9:57pm
You will not be able to use this on a computer running WinXP, XP sees USB drives as removable drives, and not hard disks. Starting with Vista, MS changed how they were seen, and that is why you can use diskpart with Vista and higher but not XP
1337Goose
October 10, 2009 at 2:02pm
I'm not sure. If you know a way to make it work on XP I'd love to hear.
I tried it and XP only shows me my two physical hard disks. It shows my USB as a volume, but I can't select it or operate on it.
~Goose
killerxx7
October 09, 2009 at 10:49am
I did this to installe win 7 beta way back whene it first came out,all went well but after the drive deid for some reason :/
Still its easyer then burning a dvd heh
mrvander
October 08, 2009 at 5:12am
... I can't fathom why people in these comments are recommending a third party application when a few simple command lines as instructed in this article work wonderfully.
Pentium 0
October 08, 2009 at 6:30am
Because I've had tons of problems doing it the command line way in Vista. Administrator problems, random errors...ive never had it work once for me. But maybe I'm just terrible with command line stuff. The main thing though is that you dont have to memorize all these steps or keep refering to this artical. It does all the work for you.
nsk chaos
October 10, 2009 at 1:27pm
vista just sucks imh =) and copy paste this article into a text file...cant be that hard can it? =)
Richard Smith
October 08, 2009 at 12:40am
Some USB sticks just won't let you create a bootable file system. Something about the firmware on the stick. I have around 10 sticks and one will not boot. BTW: I use UNetbootin and recomend it!
sheng zhang
October 07, 2009 at 10:36pm
my 2 gb sandisk doesn't show up after the command of listing disk
nsvander
October 11, 2009 at 10:20am
Sandisk Drives with the U3 file system will not work. I have used this on both of my kingston drives with out a hitch. My SanDisk...fails everytime.
nsk chaos
October 10, 2009 at 1:28pm
big enough to fit the ISO file so a 1 - 2 GB flash(USB) drive should work
Edahsetin
October 07, 2009 at 6:33pm
Its easy to look over the last part of the first step. If you don't right click cmd.exe and run as administrator it won't let you do certain things.
nsk chaos
October 07, 2009 at 5:41pm
this method is not limited to UNIX flavors...so basically u have more options to choose from
Pentium 0
October 07, 2009 at 5:46pm
Was that meant to be in reply to me? UNetbootin runs on both Linux and Windows.
Pentium 0
October 07, 2009 at 7:28pm
Uh I guess you didnt actually look at the page because you would have seen that you can choose from a list of linux isos OR browse to ANY iso on your pc and use that instead.
fnordfnord
October 08, 2009 at 6:16am
You got me. Although most of what it supports aside Linux distros are actually available as bootable ISOs or USB drive versions already. :S
Pentium 0
October 07, 2009 at 5:33pm
What part of UNetbootin (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/) don't you understand? Soooo much easier to use.
1337Goose
October 07, 2009 at 6:32pm
UNetbootin is great, but I've never actually gotten it to work. Every time I make a LiveUSB, it's never able to boot correctly, and in the end I always end up with 6 partitions on my USB.
~Goose
Pentium 0
October 07, 2009 at 7:30pm
haha ouch. works fines for me. I just took a blank flash drive and booted into a os in a couple minutes. Of course you may have to tweak the bios to boot off a flash drive.
1337Goose
October 07, 2009 at 7:45pm
Yeah, UNetbootin boots, the rig is configured to boot from USB, but when it does boot it can never process the ISOs, and the operating system never loads. No matter what OS I use, it gets caught in a different error and dies.
~Goose
Pentium 0
October 08, 2009 at 6:33am
Do you mean by "No matter what OS I use," are you refering to the one on the flash drive or the one on the pc? Have you tried a different pc?
1337Goose
October 08, 2009 at 1:48pm
I've tried changing the host OS as well as the client OS, still no luck with UNetbootin. No matter however, I've managed to find other ways to achieve what I'm going for... When I find the time, I might try what's outlined in this article.
~Goose
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