Windows USB Bootable

Much of the last weekend was spent trying to figure out how to make a USB Flash drive bootable for a Windows installation. This is no simple task, especially if you don't have a spare Windows computer up and running. But if you do, then you are in luck.

Before I attempted to use the Windows app, I did try several Linux options. UnetBootin, the CLI dd command were both promising options (see links below). However, the system I was trying to clean install did not have the appropriate boot options and so the drive was not detected on startup. This may have been a problem that was unique to me, so I would advise giving these options a go...then as a last resort, use the Windows app (Note: You won't turn into a blood-sucking parasite for using this method, but you will feel strange afterwards).

So, yes, if you want to make a Windows 7 bootable USB Flash, then I went to the Microsoft website and downloaded it an ran it on a Windows machine. Link here. Until I can find another way to do it, this will have to do.

Ciao!

Links:
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/create-bootable-windows-7-usb-drive.html
Good, but didn't work for me - http://serverfault.com/questions/6714/how-to-make-windows-7-usb-flash-install-media-from-linux

Update: 20 Dec 2011

Good news everyone! lol...link to the Professor Farnsworth, because it's worth it.

But on a serious note, I have just found a a simpler way to make a Windows USB boot drive. And by simpler, I mean on the command line :P.

The video here tells it all, but I'll summarize here, for the sake of documentation. Big thanks to uniquefree, as I for one would never have figured this out.

Briefly, the method:

1. wipes and formats the usb drive using FAT32 or NTFS file system
2. copies the files from the Windows CD/DVD straight over to the drive

I'll have to give this a go in Linux. However, at present, I'm not having much luck reading/writing to NTFS or FAT32 usb file systems :(.

Format the USB

For this example, we want to copy files from a CD/DVD drive or even a mounted .iso image at the location D:\, to our USB which will be F:\. This will obviously be different for you.

Start by partitioning the USB, using DISKPART and the following commands:

C:\>DISKPART
DISKPART> list disk
DISKPART> select disk 3
DISKPART> clean
DISKPART> create partition primary
DISKPART> select partition 1
DISKPART> active
DISKPART> format fs=fat32
DISKPART> assign
DISKPART> exit

You still need a windows computer for this one. Open the command prompt, cmd.exe, and type in DISKPART. This program should come preinstalled. The first few commands are important. Use 'list dist' to print out all the drives that have been detected by Windows. Like uniqueparts' video, there will be corresponding number down the left hand side of the output. Find the number that corresponds to the USB drive that you want to move the files to, and use it with the next command. This is important because if you choose the wrong number, the usb drive may not work (because the files were never copied there).

Uniquepart makes this quite clear, so I thought I'd do the same. I'm wondering if the 'Quick format' option that some people are familiar with would still make a bootable usb, but as yet, the longer format option given here is the way that works.


Now, the USB is ready, copy the files over using xcopy:

C:\>xcopy D:\*.* /s/e/f F:\

And you should have it!

This method is much more appealing to me and I hope it makes installs much more pleasant for those who use Windows...hehehe.

Ciao!