As more people use USB sticks in their daily computer tasks it has been observed that it is easier to transfer files and install programs form them since their reading speed is greater than that of a CD/DVD drive. This is why some might find it more easy to have their Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation kit on a USB drive and to use that to install it instead of the DVD disc.

For this reason this Guide was created, especially since Windows Vista and Windows 7 will no longer make bootable media by simply formatting it with the system option or using the former SYS command in Command Prompt.





Here are some details that you should know about before going through the process of
creating a bootable USB drive

The computer has to support booting from a USB flash/pen/key drive.
There may be anywhere from 1-3 items to change in the BIOS to make this possible assuming your BIOS supports it.
Some BIOS's may refer to your flash drive as a USB floppy or USB zip. Of course there may be exceptions.
The USB flash drive must support booting from it in general.
The flash drive must contain the boot/system files.
The flash drive must have bootsector area. This is done with special utilities.

The necessary steps top have your USB stick Bootable are described before and users should note to replace the drive letters seen in these commands with those from their computer.

1. Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable sot the Windows installation kit will fit on it) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.

2. Open elevated Command Prompt. To do this, type in CMD in Start menu search field and hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Alternatively, navigate to Start -> All programs ->Accessories -> right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.




3. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:
DISKPART and press Enter.

LIST DISK and press Enter.

Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the image shown below the USB drive disk number is Disk 1.




4. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)  and press Enter.

CLEAN  and press Enter.

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY and press Enter.

SELECT PARTITION 1 and press Enter.

ACTIVE and press Enter.

FORMAT FS=NTFS and press Enter.
(Format process may take few minutes depending on the size of the disk)

ASSIGN and press Enter.

EXIT and press Enter.

Don't close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Insert your Windows DVD in the optical drive and note down the drive letter of the optical drive and USB stick. Here I use "X" as my optical (DVD) drive letter and "E" as my USB drive letter.

6.Switch back to command prompt and execute the following commands:

X:

CD BOOT and hit enter. Where "X" is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.

X:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 E: and press Enter.

(Where "E" is your USB drive letter)



7. Copy the Windows DVD contents to USB.

You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

Note that this bootable USB guide will not work if you are trying to make a bootable USB on XP computer.



Thanks For Reading.