Bootable USB

Install Windows Vista from Bootable USB Flash Memory Drive

You can even install Windows Vista with USB 2.0 flash memory drive now. All you need is a high speed 4GB flash memory only to create a bootable Windows Vista on flash memory drive.

It sounds a bit rare to hear people install Windows Vista on Flash Memory. Actually, the concept is simple by using flash memory drive to act as the Windows Vista installation DVD disk only. But installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive perhaps is the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install which nowadays every computer or laptop have a USB drive. Meanwhile, these is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit Ethernet, or possibly even some external USB 2.0 hard drives, due to differences in access speed & transfer rate. So below the step to create a bootable windows vista on flash memory drive

Create a bootable Windows Vista on Flash Memory

Guide 1

1. Format the USB flash memory drive to FAT32 files system

Run CMD.EXE and type the following command. Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as “disk 1″. Double check that by doing a list of the disks (type “list disk”) before cleaning it).

diskpart

select disk 1

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=fat32

assign

exit

2. Copy Windows Vista’s DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

Type in command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

3. Setup your computer BIOS to boot from USB Drive

4. Install Windows Vista from flash memory drive

After finish the above step. you can  try to view how fast the installation of windows vista can be completed. Let us know how you feel if whether installing windows vista on flash memory drive compare the installation window vista on DVD media.

Guide 2

Bootable USB guide2, here we assume that you are using either Vista or Windows 7 (NOT XP) to create a bootable USB.

1. Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) 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 hit enter.
LIST DISK and hit enter.
Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image my USB drive disk no 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)
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS
(Format process may take a while)
ASSIGN
EXIT

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 media. Here I use “D” as my optical (DVD) drive letter and “H” as my USB drive letter.

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

D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H: and hit enter
(Where “H” is your USB drive letter)

7. And just copy 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). you have to  be sure that in BIOS, where you can select boot priority, the first on the list is USB.

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