Tonight I will show you how to load a Window 7 Installation Disk onto a USB Drive. A short video shows you the process and walks you through the preparation steps.
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Background
I am about ready to start a Windows 7 installation on another PC I am building and a netbook I just got for my wife next week. Since her netbook does not have a drive, and I am not buying a DVD drive just for the new OS install, I needed an alternative installation method.
In addition, sometimes we just need to install a fresh OS. Windows 7 installation DVDs are great but they are susceptible to damage and are slow. In addition, sometimes your PC may not have a DVD drive. Most netbooks do not even have DVD drives anyway!
With about $10 for a 4GB USB stick and your Windows 7 DVD you can make your own Windows 7 installation USB drive.
Equipment Needed
- 4GB USB Drive (larger size USB drive is ok)
- Windows 7 Installation DVD
- One Beer (optional as always)
Preparing the USB Drive – Video
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Steps for preparing the USB drive
- Insert your USB drive and wait for any USB drivers to load
- Start diskpart from Start Menu
- list disk command to find USB drive number
- select disk 5 command (5 being whatever number YOUR USB drive number is)
- clean command
- create partition primary command
- format fs=fat32 quick command
- assign command
The newly conditioned and formatted drive should pop up on the screen. Open it with explorer if it does not open automatically.
Insert your Windows 7 DVD, cancel any auto-run windows that may pop up, and use Windows explorer to view the DVD contents.
Now, just drag and drop the entire contents of the Windows 7 DVD to the USB drive. The disk will be about 80% hence the 4GB size. You can always use a larger USB drive if you had one laying around.
See you next Friday night,
Timothy Daleo
Thanks Tim 🙂
For those of you who might want a much more detailed step by step with pictures on preparing your drive, have a look at our other article here:
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2009/05/29/how-…
Andrew
Hate to rain on Tim's parade, but Microsoft (I know, right?!?) has released a tool/wizard that does all of this in three steps. Here's a link to the Microsoft page with instructions:
http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool
Tyler
My understanding was that the tool would only work with versions of Windows you had bought through the Microsoft electronic store where as what Tim is talking about, and the post that I wrote last summer is with any obtained copy of Windows 7, and in fact with any operating system.
Andrew
Nope, it works on just about any Windows installation .ISO. I've used it for several (including Windows 7 and WHS) that obtained from MSDN.
Cool – thanks for the info Dave
Tyler
Having looked at the link, it states:
This tool is only for use with the Windows 7 ISO file purchased from Microsoft Store.
So Tim's post is still accurate for those who already have the software (or other versions)
Andrew
That may be what it says, but my first-hand personal experience informs me otherwise.
Cool – thanks for the info Dave.