HOW TO INSTALL WINDOWS USING USB FLASH

Quite a number of people find it difficult to re-install their OS (Operating System) after formatting either their Desktops or Laptops. You would also agree that it is even more difficult especially if you use a mini laptop or portable notebook which comes with no DVD drive. It means you would have to either buy an external DVD drive to watch your movies, which is quite expensive, or you copy all your media files using a USB (Universal Serial Bus).

Having an external DVD may not be too easy in most cases. Even if it is, you might have to deal with the conscious habit of carrying it around in case you are presented with an opportunity where you would need it. However, having an external DVD would definitely come handy when you are in a situation that requires you to format and re-install your OS or upgrade to another. Most common OS are the XP, Vista, Windows 7 & 8.

Statistically, in a group of a 100 people you can easily ascertain the most used OS. One would find that about 78% use Windows 7, 12% use XP, 8% use Vista while the remaining 2% use Windows 8. If you therefore have need to change to any of these OS aforementioned, you can now do so with ease with a USB! yes you heard me right.

It surprised me to find that there are very few dead-simple guides to creating a bootable USB thumb/pen/flash drive for a Vista and/or Windows 7 installation. The process is so easy. This will walk you through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of
installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.
Requirements:

1. USB Flash Drive (4GB+)
2. Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)
3. A computer running Vista / Windows 7

Step 1: Format the Drive
The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. so ensure to backup your data first.]

• Plug in your USB Flash Drive

• Open a command prompt, right-click on it and choose "Run as administrator" (click on Start > type "cmd" without the quotes > right-click on it > select “Run as administrator”. You will see a window pop-up, select YES.

• When it opens, type "diskpart" without the quotes and hit enter

• Next type "list disk" without the quotes and hit enter.

• The number of your USB drive will be listed. You’ll need this for the next step.  I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1.

• Take a look at the Size column and figure out which disk number your USB drive is. Mine is number 1, so I'm going to type "select disk 1" without the quotes and hit enter.Now you would.

• Now we're going to wipe it by typing "clean" without the quotes and hitting enter (make sure to do a backup of the contents if you haven't already).

• At this point we want to prepare the USB drive for the files and make sure it is bootable. Type "create partition primary" without the quotes and hit enter. 

• Then type "select partition 1" without the quotes and hit enter. Next type "active" without the quotes and hit enter. 

•  Finally, type "format fs=NTFS" without quotes and hit enter. NOTE: NTFS is a better choice for this purpose since you are trying to make your USB a Bootable device. This one will take a while, so go grab a snack, I'll wait.

• When that's done, type "assign" without the quotes and hit enter (this will assign a new drive letter to the USB flash drive). 

 When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable. An AutoPlay window like the one above will appear. Remember the drive letter (in my case it is H:), close the window, type "exit" without the quotes and hit enter.
      
Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable.  This is probably the part you would have to do with someone else's computer or any system that has a DVD drive. Open Command prompt in the same way that you were using in Step 1. Also remember to open as administrator.

•  Insert your Windows Vista or 7 DVD into your drive.

• On the command window, change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives. i.e. my DVD drive is "D", therefore i will type "D:" without the quotes.

• Next type "cd d:\boot".

• Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer. Therefore you will type "bootsect /nt60 g:"

• You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive. But since we've been using the command prompt up to this point, I'll show you how to do the last step with it as well.

• Open Command prompt with administrator priviledges.

• Type "xcopy D:*.*/s/e/f G:" without the quotes and hit enter. Note that you will likely have to replace "D:" with the drive letter for your Windows 7 DVD and "G:" with the drive letter for your USB flash drive respectively. Don't worry if install.wim takes a while to copy: it's easily the biggest file on the disc. After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option. The key could either be "F8", "F10", F12" or "DEL".

So hit this button before your computer boots up. Once this is done find the "Boot Option" tab or section and change the priority your boot device. i.e. make your USB "first" on the priority. Save changes and exit.

Your system will reboot and all you need do is follow the on-screen instruction. Enjoy your new OS! Please drop your comments and i will be glad to be of help.....