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Install Windows 7
or Vista from USB Flash Drive
Written January 7, 2009
First off, this will completely delete everything on the flash drive,
and if you're not careful it can delete everything on one of your other,
very important drives. Only do this if you know what you're doing, and
if you screw up, it's not my fault.
Ok, first we'll need a usb flash drive that's at least 4GB and that has
no important data on it (if it does, back it up first, and not to the
drive you're about to do a clean install of Windows to!). Second, we
have to do this on a PC running Vista or newer (Windows 7 works fine, XP
and below do not). Now, open up your command prompt and type (remember
to hit enter after each command):
diskpart
A new command prompt opens up with diskpart running. Now type:
list disk
Your flash drive should be listed as disk 1, if you see disks other than
disk 0 and disk 1 listed, make absolutely sure you know which one is
your flash drive, and don't continue if you're not absolutely 100%
certain. Assuming it is disk 1 we type these commands:
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
exit
Now we need to copy the Vista or Windows DVD contents to the usb flash
drive. We will assume that d: is the dvd drive (or if you're using a
program to mount the iso as a regular drive, d: is the virtual drive)
and e: is the usb flash drive. Double-check your drive letters first in
My Computer. Now, in the command prompt, type this:
xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\
When that's done, shut down your PC, enter the bios if needed to make
the usb flash drive the first boot device (or at least before your hard
drive), and install Windows like normal. Note that not every PC's bios
supports booting from a usb flash drive, but generally anything halfway
recent will work fine.
Questions? Ask in the
forum or
email me.
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