In my last article, "Ten Interesting Uses for a Flash Drive," I talked about what else, besides storing data, you can use flash drives - including booting an operating system. I have since discovered an interesting installation method on the Microsoft TechNet Magazine website. Windows 7 from a flash drive.
This is a very good idea for two reasons. Firstly, installing from a flash drive is much faster, because, unlike an optical drive, it has no physically moving parts, which means that the read speed is much higher. Second, it's a great way to install Microsoft Windows 7 on systems that don't have a DVD drive, such as netbooks.
This method will certainly be of interest to users who plan to install Windows 7 on netbooks or on multiple systems at once (if we are talking about the Family Pack), so I decided to study it in more detail.
In this article, I'll show you how to use the DiskPart utility to create a bootable flash drive from which you can install Microsoft Windows 7.
Training
Of course, to use this method, you'll need a flash drive large enough to hold the entire contents of the Windows 7 installation DVD. the same, if not more. For my experiment, I will use a 4 GB flash drive.
Keep in mind that the USB drive will be completely reformatted during the installation process, so be sure to copy the data stored on it to a safe place.
In order to install Windows 7 on a computer from a flash drive, the system must support booting from a USB drive. In most modern models, this option is already provided - it can be configured in the BIOS or enabled by pressing a certain key at boot. It all depends on the configuration of a particular system. Using the DiskPart Utility
The DiskPart utility is a command-line version of the Disk Management utility application. It allows you to manage disks, partitions, and volumes using scripts or directly from the command line. You and I will use the DiskPart utility in Windows Vista or Windows 7 to turn a regular flash drive into a bootable one (this cannot be done in Windows XP).
First, connect the flash drive to the computer you will be working on. I'm using Windows Vista for this.
Now find the command prompt shortcut (Command Prompt) in the Start menu, right-click on it, select the Run as Administrator option and confirm the continuation of the operation in the User Account Control (UAC) window ). Now run the DiskPart utility. To do this, enter DiskPart at the command prompt. The DISKPART prompt will appear, as shown in fig. A.
Figure A DiskPart has its own command line environment.
Now we need to find the flash drive using the List Disk command. My USB drive is detected as "Disk 5" (Figure B). You can make sure that this is really the right disk by looking at the number in the "Size" column - as you can see, the volume of Disk 5 is 3906 MB, that is, about 4 GB.
Figure B The List Disk command lists the disks found in the system.
If you cannot identify your drive in the List Disk list, use the List Volume command - it displays a list with labels and drive letters.
Now you need to point DiskPart to the desired disk. This is very important - in no case make a mistake, otherwise you risk destroying valuable data! In my case, the flash drive is "Disk 5", so I'll use the Select Disk 5 command, as shown in fig. C.
Figure C The Select Disk command allows you to switch to the desired disk.
After selecting the USB drive, remove all partitions and volume formatting from it. To do this, use the Clean command. Cleanup is usually very fast, and when the operation is completed, the message shown in Fig. D.
Figure D To clean the flash drive, you need to use the Clean command to remove all partitions and format the volume.
Now use the Create Partition Primary command to create a primary partition on the disk. After that, a message about the successful completion of the operation will appear, and the focus will automatically switch to the new section. Use the Active command to mark the partition as active (Figure E). This will allow the BIOS to recognize this partition as a system bootable partition.
Figure E. The Create Partition Primary and Active commands allow you to create a bootable partition on the flash drive.
After that, format the drive and create a FAT32 file system on it using the Format fs=FAT32 shortcut (NTFS could also be used, but flash drives are usually formatted in FAT32). Now use the Assign command (Figure F) to assign a drive letter.
Figure F To complete the operation, you need to format the drive and assign it a letter.
The USB stick is ready to go. Exit the DiskPart environment with the Exit command and close the command prompt window. Copying Windows 7 Setup Files
It is very easy to copy the Windows 7 installation files to a flash drive - just launch Windows Explorer (Windows Explorer), find the installation DVD, select all the files and folders, and then drag them to the USB drive, as shown in fig. G. Copying may take some time.
Figure G With the USB drive ready, copy all the files and folders from the Windows 7 installation DVD to the new bootable partition.
Installing Windows 7 from a USB drive
Installing Windows 7 from a bootable USB drive is very easy. You just need to boot the system from a flash drive and the installation process will start automatically, as shown in Fig. H. This will complete the installation much faster because the flash drive has no physically moving parts.
Figure H After booting the system from the USB drive, the Windows 7 installation starts automatically and completes much faster.
What do you think?
Have you ever wanted to install an operating system from a USB drive? Now that you know how it's done, will you use this method to install Windows 7 on netbooks and multiple computers? Share your opinion in the comments!
How to copy Windows and in what reliable, checked up program. Further, where to store a copy and on what medium, so that nothing happens to it. The thing is, our family uses the computer actively, creating accounts with limited rights does not help. From time to time, Windows with all the programs has to be reinstalled and configured again, it takes a whole day. I read your article, but it is too complicated for me, you have several hard drives and many partitions there. Could you give me some simple instructions, I only have one hard drive and two volumes (C:) and (D:). Dmitry.
How to copy Windows
Note: Hello friends, after reading this article, I recommend our newest article on working with the new version of Acronis True Image 13. . And further restore Windows 8 from a backup.
Many more users are interested in how you can transfer Windows to another computer using the tools built into the operating system, that is, without resorting to any programs, and in fact there is such a way, it is described in our article "".
In order to create an archive copy of the system, it doesn’t matter: Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, 10, first of all, you need to think about the program we need, I work with all such utilities and I can say that, for example, Acronis is quite suitable. Secondly, we need to think about where we will be copy Windows, there are many options, best of all on a portable USB hard drive, although many create a copy or correctly name a Windows backup on an additional hard disk partition. If the Windows system partition is not large, you can even use DVD discs.
There is also another partition (E) with a volume of almost 300 GB and you and I can copy Windows and place our copy of the system on it, it will take about 3 GB, in my case I can even use a DVD to store the archive or flash drive.
You can work in Acronis True Image Home from the operating system or from a boot disk. It is better to immediately learn how to copy Windows or, in other words, create a backup of the system, as well as deploy a copy of the system in place of a damaged Windows, working from an Acronis boot disk or flash drive. Why? Firstly, it is not difficult, and secondly, you will most likely use a copy of the system when Windows falls so much that it will not boot at all, and it is better to always be ready for this. In this case, you can immediately boot from the Acronis disk and restore your Windows with all the programs in a few minutes, isn't that great.
So we create a copy of Windows in the Acronis program and place it on disk (E). Creating a system backup in the Windows graphical shell and from a boot disk looks the same. Similarly, deploying a copy of Windows in place of a damaged one also looks the same, now you will see everything for yourself. You can create Acronis Bootable Media (disk or flash drive) in the program itself, you can read it here. How to boot your computer from or, also read from us.
Boot from Acronis media.
Select backup disks.
We see that our disk (C:) is 165 GB in size, designated as (E), put a tick on it and click Next.
In this window, click Browse
and select the hard disk partition where we will create a Windows backup, in our case we don’t have to make a special choice, since the letters are mixed up, so we select (C :), which is actually (E) 300 GB.
An archived copy of Windows is called, for example, No. 1
Proceed.
Windows is being backed up.
In a running Windows 7 operating system, it will look like this, the format of a copy of Windows made with Acronis always has the .tib extension.
Try not to accidentally delete this copy.
Now let's imagine that Windows does not boot up for you and none of our articles from the section helped, then we have only one hope for an archived copy of Windows 7. The recovery will be complete, that is, everything that is on your disk (C:) will be replaced by the contents of the archive. So if you have important data on the (C:) drive, you should use any Live CD and copy it to a safe place, otherwise it will be lost.
Boot from Acronis media and select Recovery.
Quite often, you may encounter a situation in which a program needs to be transferred from one computer to another without losing various settings. The PickMeApp utility will help to cope with this task.
Instruction
Installing Windows is an inevitable occurrence for every personal computer. The most popular operating system from Microsoft is Windows 7. This version has a simple interface and support for almost all devices and programs.
As a rule, Windows installation occurs either from a DVD disc or from a USB flash drive. The flash drive provides the ability to install on computers that do not have a DVD drive. But if the user formats the flash drive sooner or later, then the DVD disc will most likely always be stored, allowing you to reinstall the operating system at any time.
What is a boot disk
The boot disk is the media that contains the boot files of the operating system. Simply put, this is a disk or USB drive with a Windows installer. A boot disk allows you to install an OS without having an operating system on the hard disk itself. That is, even in the most critical situations, you can reinstall your Windows.
What you need to create a boot disk
To create a boot disk you will need:
- Windows image. For ease of recording, it is recommended to download images of the operating system in ISO format. At the moment, there are a huge number of different assemblies of Windows 7. It is strongly recommended to download images as close as possible to a licensed copy of Windows. This option provides the highest stability of the operating system. You can download the Windows image from numerous torrent trackers.
- DVD disc. Both DVD-R and DVD-RW can be used.
- image recording software. At the moment, there are many different programs that provide the ability to burn Windows 7 images to discs, as well as flash drives. Among the programs there are applications, both provided directly by Microsoft and third-party developers.
Disc burning methods
The methods for writing boot images to disk differ only in the program that is used. The principle of action in most programs remains the same: the program writes files, creating a boot file that will allow you to start installing Windows even without an operating system on the computer.
Video: How to make a Windows 7 installation boot disk
Burning the ISO Image to DVD
There are many programs that can be used to burn a boot disk, we will look at just a few of them. How to create a windows 7 boot disk using Nero? How to create from ISO image in Nero?
To burn a disc, you must perform the following operations:
How to create a boot disk using Ultraiso for windows 7?
To create a Windows 7 boot disk using the UltraISO program, you must perform the following operations:
Creating a disc by copying
In addition to writing the installation files of the operating system to disk, the user also has the ability to create backup copies of the current operating system with the possibility of further recovery. It is recommended that you perform a backup immediately after installing Windows and all drivers. There are many programs for creating backups, one of the most popular is Acronis.
How to create a windows 7 boot disk using Acronis?
Acronis can create backup copies of your current operating system for later restoration. In order to restore a backup, you must also create an Acronis boot disk that will boot without the Windows operating system in case your system stops booting. You can save a backup copy of your system both on your hard drive and on a flash drive.
Creating an Acronis Boot Disk
Create a backup
To create a backup copy of your disk from the current operating system for further recovery, you must perform the following steps:
Restoring Windows from a Backup
Restoring from a previously created backup of your disk from the operating system can be performed in two ways: from the Windows environment or from the bootable media that you created in the previous paragraph. Recovery from bootable media is performed if your operating system does not boot.
To restore a copy of a hard disk partition from a computer (from Windows), do the following:
- open Acronis True Image;
- select the "My backups" section;
- click on the "Restore" button next to your copy;
- in the next window, select what you are going to restore;
- Click "Restore Now" to start execution. After the reboot, the recovery process will begin.
To restore a copy of a hard disk partition from bootable media, do the following:
How to Create a Windows 7 Boot Disk Using Daemon Tools
To create a boot disk using Daemon Tools, do the following:
Create an installation disk through alternative programs
In addition to the suggested programs, there is also an official application for burning Windows 7 setup files from Microsoft - Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
DTo create a boot disk using this program, you must:
At the moment, there are many different programs that allow you to create a bootable disk or a bootable USB flash drive for Windows 7. Using these instructions, you can create several different options for bootable media with operating system installation files.
The most important point is the choice of the operating system image itself. We strongly recommend that you do not download various builds that include a set of programs. Windows copies as close as possible to the licensed version will provide the highest level of stability during operation.
>First, consider a fairly simple way to copy content from one flash drive to another.
First way:
To copy the image of a bootable USB flash drive, you will need to perform the following steps:
- Connect a bootable Windows USB flash drive to a USB port on your computer.
2. Launch the UltraISO program.
". From the context menu select " Create Floppy Image…" or " Create Hard Disk Image...” (both options work the same way).
4. In the window " Create Disk Image”, in the “Drive” item, select the drive letter that indicates the bootable USB flash drive connected to the computer in Explorer. In the settings item " Save as”, select a location to save the disk or floppy image. By default, a disk or floppy image will be saved in the ".ima" format.
Pay attention to that that the file in the "IMA" format will have a size equal to the volume of the entire flash drive. If the flash drive has a size of 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, then the “.ima” file will have an identical size, respectively.
Make sure you have enough free space on your computer disk. After copying the flash drive is completed, this file is no longer needed, it can be deleted.
5. Click on the " Do».
7. The window that opens " Clue» will inform you about the successful completion of the disk image creation.
8. Connect the second UISB drive to the computer to which you want to transfer the contents of the first flash drive. Disconnect the original bootable flash drive from the computer, it is no longer needed.
9. In the UltraISO program, enter the menu " File”, press “ Open…", select the file "boot.ima".
”, select “”.
11. In the window " Write Disk Image"You need to make settings for recording a bootable USB flash drive with Windows:
- in setting " disk drive» select the flash drive (be guided by its designation in Explorer, the name and size of the disk space);
- you can check the box " Verify"to check the recorded flash drive for errors;
- in field " Image file» check the path to the original disk image;
- in the option " Write Method» select « USB HDD+»
12. Click on the " burn».
13. In the window " Clue» agree that all information will be deleted from the disk.
15. After completion and verification, in the window " Write Disk Image” event information will appear: “Recording completed!”.
Close the UltraISO program, the Windows bootable USB flash drive has been transferred to another disk and is ready for use.
Second way:
The second method assumes that you first need to copy the bootable USB flash drive to ISO format, which is then written to another USB flash drive. During this operation, a system image was created in the ISO format without booting, however, during the check, the copied USB flash drive with the Windows 10 operating system was loaded on my computer.
Do the following:
- Connect a bootable USB flash drive with Windows and an empty USB flash drive to which you want to copy the data to your computer.
2. Enter the UltraISO program.
3. Select the symbol of the bootable flash drive in the Catalog area, and then drag it to the new project area.
4. In the window " Clue» Agree to add all files to the disk.
5. After that, the contents of the bootable flash drive will be displayed in the new project area.
6. Enter the menu " File”, select in the context menu “ Save as…».
7. In the Explorer window that opens, give the file a name (I chose the name "Windows 10"), select the location to save the ISO file.
8. In the window " Process» displays the process of saving the ISO file to the computer.
9. After saving the file on the computer, enter the menu " File”, in the context menu select “ Open…».
10. In the Explorer window, select the previously saved ISO image.
12.In the window " Write Disk Image» make settings:
- in the option " disk drive» select the flash drive to which you want to copy the contents of the bootable flash drive;
- check the box " Examination» in order to make sure that the process of writing to the USB flash drive went without errors;
- check the correct path to the image file, in this case, to the image " windowsiso»;
- in setting " Write Method» select « USB HDD+».
13. Then click on the "Record" button.
14. In the warning window, agree that all data from the flash drive will be deleted.
16. After the recording is completed, close the UltraISO program window.
How to transfer a Windows image from a DVD to a USB flash drive in UltraISO
Sometimes, there are situations when the user has a Windows installation disc recorded on a DVD. He needs to copy the disk with the operating system to a USB flash drive, which will become bootable.
To transfer a Windows image from an installation disk to a USB flash drive, you must perform the following steps:
1. Insert the operating system DVD into your computer's drive.
2. Connect the flash drive to the computer.
3. In the UltraISO program window, enter the menu " File”, select “ Open CD/DVD…».
4. In the window " Open CD/DVD» select the computer's optical drive, click on the button « Open».
5. Enter the "Boot" menu, select "Burn Hard Disk Image ...".
6. In the "Write Disk Image" window, make the settings for writing a bootable flash drive:
- in " disk drive» select the flash drive;
- check the box next to " Verify»;
- in field " Image file» the drive letter of the optical drive is displayed;
- select recording method " USB HDD+».
7. Click on the " burn».
8. Agree to delete all data from the flash drive in the " Clue».
9. After completing the burning process and checking the flash drive, close the UltraISO program.
You have a bootable Windows 10 flash drive created from the installation DVD.
Conclusion
If necessary, using the UltraISO program, you can copy the contents of a bootable USB flash drive to another USB flash drive, making it bootable. UltraISO has the ability to transfer the contents of a DVD disc with the Windows operating system to a USB flash drive.