How To Boot And Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive
Updated: An updated version of this tutorial can be found here, featuring an easier and faster way to create a Windows 7 USB installer drive.
The Windows 7 beta has been released for quite a while now. If you want to follow the crowd and test it in your system, but do not want to burn into a DVD, here is how you can create a bootable USB drive to install Windows 7 on your system.
Format USB flash drive to NTFS format
(For Win XP only. Vista users can directly format the USB drive to NTFS format) In your Windows, go to Control panel -> system -> hardware -> Device manager.
Under the disk drives section, right click on the USB storage drive and select Properties.
Go to the Policies tab, select optimize for performance. Click OK.
Open your Windows Explorer, you should see the USB storage drive in the inventory. Right click and select Format. Select NTFS from the drop down bar. Click Start.
For Windows XP,
Download MBRWizard. Extract the zipped files to your desktop.
Open a command prompt (Start –> Program –> Accessories –> Command Prompt).
cd Desktop/MBRWiz2.0/
MBRWiz /list
Record the USB flash drive disk number
Make the USB drive active.
mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1
For Windows Vista,
On the Start menu, navigate to the command prompt entry. Right-click and select Run as administrator.
Type
diskpart
list disk
Record the disk number of your USB flash drive.
Select the USB disk.
select disk X (X is the drive number of the USB flash drive)
List the current partition. Record the partition number.
list partition
Select the current partition and make it active.
select partition Y (Y is the partition number of the USB flash drive)
active
Creating bootable USB flash drive
Download Windows 7 iso (32-bit) file to your desktop (The download link is no longer valid).
Download and install WinRAR.
Right-click on the Windows 7 iso file and select Extract files. Extract the files to a folder (you can name the folder any name you want, but for illustration purpose, I name it win-7) in your desktop.
In your command prompt, cd to the windows 7 folder.
cd Desktop/win-7 (Change the destination to the folder that you have extracted)
cd boot
bootsect /nt60 X: (X is the drive latter of your USB drive )
Now, copy all the files from the Windows 7 folder to the USB flash drive.
Reboot the computer. Remember to change the first boot device to your USB drive in the BIOS.
You should be able to install Windows 7 from your USB flash drive now.
Tags: boot, flash drive, usb, windows 7
(7 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)
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[Click to close]122 Responses
Fantastic. Worked exactly as I hoped it would!
My little HP Mini laptop has a 16gb solid state, so it was always going to be impossible for me to update it from XP, or even clean install windows 7 using the windows installer, as my hard drive wouldn’t have enough space to store the old windows installation.
So! This is perfect – I can now use Windows 7 x86 on my little notebook.
Thank you kindly.
How can I get my normal USB drive?
It’s NTFS right?
I can’t format it, it says it’s right protected.
A normal USB drive usually come with Fat32 filesystem, but in some situations, it can be in NTFS as well.
If it is NTFS, you probably won’t be able to delete the file or format because of the file permissions on the drive.
To fix this, right-click on the drive and selecting Properties. Click on the Security tab, click Advanced. Click on the “apply to all child directories” checkbox, and click apply.
Next, still on the Security tab, select Add, type in ‘everyone’ and press OK. Select “Full Control’ in the permissions box.
You should now be able to delete all the files or format the drive now.
Thanks for this nice how to, but I’d like to leave a message to people out there:
This will not work if you’re on XP. I spend a lot of time trying to figure this out.
Keeps returning an error message when trying to boot: “boot0: error”.
Best regards!
could anyone give an explanation as to why you cannot create this bootable usb drive in xp?
The problem stems from the fact that the Windows command line disk utility (diskpart) does not support removable disks under XP, which is the main purpose for using MBRWizard to set the partition active. Aside from this there shouldn’t be a problem under XP.
hey i found something much useful http://cyberlifeday.blogspot.com/2009/12/botting-windowslinux-os-any.html
i want to try windows 7 x64 on my laptop that is running vista 32 but i dont want to remove vita till i know how 7 will run/work can any one help ? can i install 7 to an external hdd and run it from there and keep my vista too any help would be awsome as i have hit a brick wall chears Doodlz out…..
Thanks for the tip, but I cant seem to select the partition using Diskpart. I’m trying this from a Windows 7 machine itself. I could see that Partition 1 of my USB is already selected(a star) when I listed the partitions. But when I punched in the command “Active” it says no Parition selected. So, couldnt continue with. Am I missing anything ?
Thanks for the tutorial. Worked the first time. Anyone can do this.
Well written!
Hi there i cant my usb to boot, i do all the diskpart steps but when i tray to make it a bootable it gives me an error: “could not map drive partition to the associated volume device object: access denied” Please help because i need to upgrade from xp to win 7. I tryed to use all 3 o.s. and failed in all of them. my e mail is pablo329328@hotmail.com if some one knows how to solve this i appreciated.
Have you tried WinToFlash? (http://maketecheasier.com/updated-boot-and-install-windows-7-from-usb-flash-drive/2009/09/12)
i have the same problem….“could not map drive partition to the associated volume device object: access denied” Please help …thankss
I tried it many times but when i try to active disk i get this error
Error 64: Invalid Parameter: 2 what about that?
i seem to get and error when i run bootsect saying that my 32 bit vista os is incompatible with the windows 7 64 bit. is there a work around for this.
Unfortunately you will need a version of bootsect which matches the operating system under which you are running. I typically download both Win7 platforms (x86/x64) and use the appropriate version.
I am running Windows 7, and tried to install windows vista to a 120GB external USB drive following instructions above. It boots fine, but when I select the USB drive to install Windows Vista to it, it says cant install Windows to USB drive. Help!!!
i cant make bootable flash drive ive already formatted my usb when im making bootsect in cmd prompt this is the message coming up… could not map drive partitions to the associated device objects.. access is denied. can u help me for this.. pls?
Worked like a champ. Thank you for taking the time to document such a useful procedure.
allowed me to install Windows 7 on my Netbook. Thank you for taking the time to write this tutorial.
Thanks for this.
Hey ever one MAPPING A DISk problem is due to access denied….IF U RUN Command prompt as administrator than u can do it eaisly….thanx to author
Thanx for the tutorial. worked like a charm first time.. Tried WinToFlash and it failed miserably.. needed this to install win7 to a bunch on P4 2.8GHz Dell optiplexes with no DVD drives, whos disks were partitioned small.. Stuart.. u dont install it to the usb drive you just simply copy the files you extracted from the ISO to the usb drive..
My pen drive problem. And I want active MBR. I follow your instruction,
cd Desktop/MBRWiz2.0/
MBRWiz /list
mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1
but, show massage
Error 14: – Unable to save the MBR to selected disk
Can you help me. Thanks.
You must specify a disk number for the /disk parameter when using mbrwizard, such as /disk=1 (NOT /disk=x). What disk number does the mbrwiz /list command show for your removable disk? This is the number you want to use with /disk=
You may also want to look at an application I just found called BootSage Disk Builder. It looks like it can automate the whole process for you. http://firesage.com/bootsage
Finally found this article which shows how to create a bootable USB drive on XP! Thanks! That part worked fine, and my Acer Aspire netbook boots up from from the USB, but Win7 setup can’t install on C: drive. I get a message saying ‘Setup was unable to create a new system partition’ I’m trying to install over my existing WinXP install. Does Win7 need a NTFS formatted partition to install ? I realize this is probably off-topic, but, any suggestions ?
Windows 7 surely needs an NTFS formatted drive
Hi, i followed these steps, and have checked that the USB is first on BIOS. But then it says Reboot and select proper boot device. I have no idea what to do, please help!
Hi James,
Have you tried win2flash software to make your USB bootable, if not please check the under given URL to boot your system from USB and install windows xp, vista and 7 from a USB drive.
http://www.itoperationz.com/2009/10/install-windows-xp-vista-and-7-from-a-usb/
@James: When you startup your computer, you will have a choice to boot from USB drive (press either F2 or F12, depending on your motherboard configuration). From then on, the Windows 7 installer will run from your USB drive.