Install Windows 7 from a Pendrive (Working 100 %)/ How to create a bootable Pendrive to install Windows 7
Here is a small and working tutorial to install windows 7 from a bootable USB or Pendrive. These days most of them have a USB or Pendrive. So why don't you try this trick. Earlier i have posted on How to Install vista from a Pendrive. Installing Windows 7 using a pendrive is very much faster than that from DVD/CD. You just need to follow some small steps to do this. You can keep this pendrive/USB drive for future installation of Windows 7. If you are a beginner or dont want to get messed up by typing in all commands, here is a Free Utility To Create A Bootable USB To Install Windows 7, Vista & Server 2008. This tool will help you to automate the process of bootable pendrive's and you can install windows 7 from pendrive easily. If not you can follow this guide to install windows 7 from a pendrive.
Make sure you have a Pendrive or USB drive with a minimum of 4 GB space and you have the Windows 7 installation DVD. This tutorial is best suited if you have a Windows 7 DVD with you else you need to change it
- Format the Pendrive or USB drive in NTFS format first.
- From the start menu right click on the command prompt and select "Run as administrator".
- Now type the following commands (Press enter key after each command).
- diskpart. This is to open the disk partition program.
- Now to show the list of drives type list disk.
- You can see disk's listed there. Note down the disk number of your pendrive eg. Disk .
- Now type SELECT DISK X (where X is the number you noted down for the pendrive from step 5)
- Now type CLEAN.
- Now type the following commands by pressing enter after each one.
- CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
- SELECT PARTITION 1 (Assuming your pendrive/ USB drive is 1).
- ACTIVE
- FORMAT FS=NTFS
- ASSIGN
- EXIT(Now the disk partition program will exit). Now we need to give some more commands.
- Now insert the Windows 7 Installation DVD and to your DVD drive.
- Here i am assuming DVD drive as G and Pendrive as I.(Change it accordingly).
- Now type G:CD BOOT
- Now type this command BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 I: to update your USB drive with bootmgr code.
- Finally copy all the contents from the Windows 7 DVD to your Pendrive. Make sure you don't cause any errors.
- Plug / Insert your pendrive to your PC and restart the system.
- Now Enter the Bios system accordingly by pressing the key delete.(This may vary some times it will be F2 or F12. It depends on the type of your system. Any how during the start up your system will display which key to press to enter the Bios).
- Now select the USB/ Pendrive as the first boot driver.(Set the first boot priority to USB drive.).
- Now save the settings in Bios and restart and you will be able to Install Windows 7 using that pendrive.
Labels: Booting, Pendrives, USB Flash Drive, Windows 7
posted by Amal at
Sunday, January 11, 2009
46 Comments:
The volume does not get activated through the command and give the error that no partition is found .....
First make sure the USB disk is detected by windows and s not write protected. Now Do a clean Format to Fat 32 and do the process.
i have updated the tutorial now its working 100%. Now you can install Windows 7 from your Pendrive or USB drive without any trouble.
hello. I would like to instal windows seven on a 16GB pen drive. is it possoible?
Why not? You can install Windows 7 on 16 GB pendrive. You can go for it.
it's not possible...
during the instalation, the pen does not appear as a possible place, only hd...
can u help?
The pendrive doesn't appear if you are using Windows Xp and following this tutorial. It will be shown only when you use Windows Vista. Xp won't show up the pendrive when you use listdisk command. Try the tutorial in Vista or 7 it will work.
I have windows 7 instalation DVD, when I restart the pc, the setup starts and when it asks where I want to install, only HD appear as available, no pendrives. External HD also are available for instalation
You cannot install Windows 7 to a pendrive.Only Windows can be installed on Hard disks.Instead You can install Windows 7 from a Pendrive.
okay, thanks :(
After step 5 and before step 6 you should do;
SELECT DISK X (where X is the number you noted down for the pendrive from step 5)
Step 8 should be 'CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY' not 'SELECT ...'
Thank you Friend for the suggestion. I have updated the tutorial accordingly.
wat if i dont have the dvd...only an image file of the windows 7 dvd......actually my dvd writer isnt properly wrkng....so cant write the installation disk/.....pls help...
Here Friend,
You can install windows 7 from the hard disk instead of installing windows 7 from your pendrive, since your DVD drive is not working properly. here http://www.computingunleashed.com/2009/01/install-windows-7-vista-on-your-hard.html check it.
Friend i recommend you to replace the DVD drive as soon as possible. They are very cheaper now!
Thanks
I have tried your tutorial on a pendrive with 4 GB of pendrive but diskpart said that it can't create primary partition on it. :( What could be the problem?
There could be two problems,
1) you are using windows XP operating system and follows this tutorial.
2)You need to type select disk 2(which ever corresponds to your pendrive) instead of select volume.
If you have more doubts you can contact me directly.I will help you my best.
hello amal.... this is mel here....
i've been doing a lotz of experimenting with this install from pen drive thing....
From my experience.... when we have updated our vista with all the latest security updates..... many things start going wrong....
-first of all my dvd burner could not burn dvds, as the error msg was that i'm using nero via remote login nd its a security restriction from windows......
-my dos command line utility was also not working properly....
whenever i tried using diskpart.... i cudn't format the pen drive and make the partition as active.... a strange error was shown....!!!
So never update windows with all the latest security updates....!!!
I've been able to make my pen drive bootable from my frnd's PC running Vista.Everything seemed to be fine. I copied the Vista installation files from the ISO to pen drive.
But when i started installing.... after it reached the part where it shows...'copying files'... i was getting this error..." Error 0x80070241......some of the installation files missing/corrupt"
i've tried again and again to copy all the files exactly.... even used winrar to extract the files.... but still getting that error.
nd i'm damn sure that my Vista ISO file is perfect coz recently i burned a DVD using that and installed vista on another PC......!!!
Do u have any idea what might be the problem...?
how did u copy the ISO contents to the pen drive....??
Hi mel,
From the possible symptoms you told. There is a chance that your pendrive have some damage or some problem in writing and reading the data from it. It should not be a slow one. Flash drives are more good if you ca n get that. It has more speed. I too have experienced this same problems as you told at the beginning then i formatted the pendrive and tried. It worked.
I used winrar to extract the contents of the ISO file directly to the pendrive.
hey amal... i'm using SAN DISK Cruzer micro 4Gb flash drive...!! & the pen drive is a new one..!!
The Vista Installation ISO i'm having is: LRMCFRE_EN_DVD with size 2.49 GB... It includes the full installation package(i.e Basic,Premium,Ultimate...etc).
I doubt.... the installation package i'm having is an edited version (using V-lite)....& i'm not sure bout it...
One peculiarity i've noticed is that this installation works properly only if i boot from its written compilation on a DVD...
If i run the setup from that same DVD...in Windows..., (i.e without booting), it shows the same error.....!!!
When booting frm pen drive also , the same error is shown....
Do u have any idea bout this......??
one more thing i've noticed is that when i copy the files to the pen drive, the total size of the compilation increases in terms of bytes....!!
it seems the files r expanding.....
which is the Vista ISO u r having?? nd wat is its size??
Dear mel,
It seems that the installation you are having is the culprit. As is said earlier i too got this error when i used the modified vista installation by vlite software. It worked when i used a genuine vista installation.
You can also try mounting the vista installation to a virtual drive and then copying the files from the virtual drive to the pendrive.
Dear Amal,
Maybe, the pendrive size was the problem. I think 4 GB is to small for Windows Vista to create a primary partition. I try to do this tutorial with a pendrive with 8 GB of capacity and it works fine!
Anyway, thank you your answer on May 24, 2009 4:20 AM!
heyy.... i've even tried that too...i.e mounting using Daemon tools nd copying the files to the pen drive.....but still i get that error...
do u know....frm whr i can get the original installation of vista ultimate SP1....which is the unedited version.....??
and also gimme ur mail id...
we can have a chat sometime later...
mine is: dr.melvinjg@gmail.com
Dear mel,
You can get the original Version of Windows Vista Ultimate from microsoft. But if you can wait some more time you can buy the Windows 7 Ultimate. Doesn't the latter with more awesome features is better ?
I am not publicly sharing my email id. I will send you a friend request and you will know when i am online.
Thanks.
hello
i have followed yout steps correctly, and i managed to boot in the windows 7 setup ( im using 64 bit version )
i have a windows xp 32 bit on the drive C and i want to install w7 on an extended partition, but it sais "setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition"
i tried to install it on C too but it was the same.
do you have any idea how to solve this?
Yes the only solution is to follow the steps using windows vista. You are getting that error because you are using windows XP. Next you need to have enough room for windows 7 on the extended partition and you can install it on th ec drive only after formatting it you can install over XP.
I tried using this method but it gave me a problem. I keep getting "select driver to install" error message. its asking me to select some DVD drivers. what the hell is that ?
either your DVD drive is the culprit. Update it with the latest firmware if available. Also check whether the pendrive you are using is error free and the windows 7 installation you are using too is original one. Pirated windows 7 versions always causes troubles.
OK. Here is what I tried.
first when it gave me this error message i completely removed the DVD Drive. and tried using USB drive only.. didn't work.
Then I wrote the image on DVD but and tried installing it with DVD.. still the same error. Now I am writing this after updating the DVD firmware.. lets see what happens.. If it fails again.. is there any way I can manually navigate it to the drivers.. I have ASUS DRW 2014S1 IDE .. any way to it please let me know. I will keep you posted. If it works then I will be posting from Windows 7 or the same old Vista ultimate.
From the given reasons it is possible that the Windows 7 installation you are having must be corrupted. If not it will detect your DVD drivers automatically. It is also possible that the DVD drive has got damaged.
Try installing Windows 7 with that same DVD on your friends computer. If it works fine there. Then its time to call a computer expert to have a check up.
hello amal....
i've commented earlier regarding problem with installation of Vista...!!
I recently sorted out the problem....
The problem infact was with the ISO image...i.e it was a edited one....!!
Later i downloaded a Vista installation ISO frm torrent...checked its Hash Value to verify that it was an original installation.... nd was able to successfully install....
Thanx for ur help .......!!!
In this tutorial it doesn't show which format u shuld format ur pen drive....is it FAT32 OR NTFS ?
pliz help coz in windows vista u format it in ntfs and the commands look the same....is the same for windows 7 and vista..just abit confussed
Format the Pendrive / USB drive in NTFS format.
Thanks Friend for pointing it out. I have added that point to the tutorial.
I followed your instructions and now mine pendrive is not recognized by any BIOS.
My pendrive is 4GB PQI U339XT
My BIOS recognized it before I did 'clean' in 'diskpart' (using Win7 btw). Now, Bios sais there is no pendrive inserted. But what is interesting, Windows is recognizing pendrive without any problems.
What's more, I used second, identical pendrive, and did only 'BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60' thing on it (Step 19/20) (skipped this 'diskpart' steps) and Pendrive-with-Windows is recongized and booting fine.
Both pendrives where brand new.
Any ideas?
You can try formatting the Pendrive in Fat32 Format. Then BIOS will recognize, also instead of typing all commands, just use the above utility i mentioned before in this tutorial you can easily make the pendrive bootable to install windows 7.
You all are following very long method. Its quite simple write imageof Win7, Vista and WinXp with ultra iso.done
Can I use this for making a XP bootable install pendrive ? (using Vista or Win7 to make XP's pendrive)
can i use same method like this to make xp one?
The method for windows xp is different. So, i think this method can't be used to make a bootable pendrive in windows xp.
thank you, I guess i need to search one for making xp bootable pendrive :P
thank you for this guide, I'm also doing a Win7 pendrive, can I make one with this guide with Windows 7 OEM copy?
Yes you can make a bootable USB/Pendrive for windows 7 oem with this guide.
I've got stuck at Step 18 and 19. I got this error message:
The command is not recognized by the system as an internal/external command, executable program or batch file.
May not this is the exact error message because I have Hungarian OS so I translated it back into English, but hopefully you know what is the problem.
The Bootable USB program doesn't work for me.
I have a Corsair GT 16 GB pendrive.
You are getting the error messages because of many reasons. Most of them are mentioned in the above comments. So, there is a simple solution to make your pendrive bootable to install windows 7. just use the utility i have mentioned in the tutorial (at the beginning of the post). It will help you to make your pendrive bootable in a few steps.
i hav an iso image of win7,,,, iz it fine 2 extract d contents straight 2 pen drive rather dan using cmd,,,,,, coz when i do it with cmd is given an error that x64 not supported. cannot write it,,,, (m using vista x86)
If you are trying to boot from the Pendrive and Install Windows 7 you may try the utility mentioned in here. http://www.computingunleashed.com/2009/07/create-bootable-usb-to-install-windows.html. It will do these steps for you.
Post a Comment
Its your Turn now. Post Your Opinions and Doubts here. All comments are moderated. I will respond to your comments shortly. So, Do check back :) And This is a Do Follow Blog.
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home