Simpleng Tips

With this Bootable USB guide all you need to ensure is that your motherboard supports USB booting, and this is a common feature now for most of the computers. The method is very simple and you can use without any hassles.

What you need:
– Windows 7 DVD install disc or ISO image
– USB Drive (4GB+ and as fast as you can get)
– Running Windows Operating system
– Working set of hands and eyes
– A few minutes of your life

Before going any further, make sure you have removed any important files on your drive to a safe location, what we are about to do next is to erase the entire contents of the drive.
Insert your DVD of Windows 7 into the computer, but don’t start the normal install process.
Open your ‘My Computer’ and make a note of the drive numbers of both the USB drive and the DVD drive with Windows 7 files on it.

Procedure:

Step 1: Plug-in your USB flash drive to USB port and move all the contents from USB drive to a safe location on your system.

Step 2: Open Command Prompt with admin rights. Use any of the below methods to open Command Prompt with admin rights.

*Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Ctrl+ Shift+ Enter.

Or

*Go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

Step 3: Type in the following commands in the command prompt:

First type  

DISKPART

this loads the diskpart application we need to proceed



 Then type

LIST DISK

the image above shows our 32 GB USB drive is listed as DISK 2

so you have to type

SELECT DISK 2 (your USB Drive may have a different number, don’t follow exactly this text it depends on your usb drive)

You will get a successful response “Disk 2 is now the selected disk”





Next we want to clean the USB drive

Type:

CLEAN

you will get a successful response ‘DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk”.



After the drive is cleaned follow the list in the image above (detailed below in list order) – you can also note the successful text responses from the OS as you enter each command.

SELECT DISK 2 (or what number your USB drive has)

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

Formatting can take a little time depending on the size of the drive, our 32GB unit took about 10 minutes to format - you will see a percentage readout until it is finished.



Next type:

ASSIGN

EXIT (DISK PART will exit)

Type D: CD BOOT (substitute the “D” if necessary with the letter of your Windows 7 DVD drive)

then key

CD BOOT

then

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 E: (substitute the “E” if necessary with the letter of your now ready USB drive) – we are telling the system to create a boot sector file on the USB drive.

Now you can exit the command prompt and copy all the files on the Windows 7 DVD to the USB drive.

Once this step is finished you’ll be ready to boot from this drive, all you need to do is configure your motherboard bios setup to boot first from USB rather than hard drive or optical drive. If you don’t know how to do this, refer to your specific motherboard manual or search the internet.

Now, Windows 7 installation should take between 40% and 60% of the time it does from the DVD disc.