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 Delete key. (This might be sometimes 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.
If you liked it make a comment . Feel Free to ask if you have any doubts. I will Try my best to Help You.
38 Comments
Thank you very much Amal.. it works without a glitch
thanx alots for ur article. Its help me alots coz my dvd drive perform very bad. Thanx again.
Gr8 work dude. U really saved me.
Microsoft has also posted same topic on their website. But as usual it was not working.
Hats off to u that u know windows better than Microsoft guys.
Thanks buddy… it realy worked perfectly….
hates off sir…..
really worked the trick and so much thankful to u…..
it helped me a lot in critical situation.
so once again thank you so much………………….
Thanx a lot man fantastic & Excellent tutorials 100% working installed successfully with much more faster speed than dvd used kingston 8gb just took me around 5mins to install ……………….Had been searching for it since long time
your method may be working but i have a easy one but no offense
1. Open boot folder in the windows files and find bootsect.exe
2. Copy bootsect.exe to C or your windows drive not in any folder just in the drive.
3. Format the pen drive with ntfs format.
4.open cmd and type cd\ you will come to your main drive like c:\> in my case.
5.type bootsect.exe/nt60 i: or whatever your pendrive letter is.
6.press enter and your pen drive will be updated with bootmgr code
7. Copy all contents of windows 7 files to the pen drive and restart your computer.
8.select pen drive as boot priority and there goes your windows installation.
Great Jobs
Keep your passion for doing these..
WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW after many hours and days trying to resolve , how to boot from a pendrive on an acer Aspire One netbook….THIS IS THE ONLY POST THAT WORKED. (MANY A WEB SOLUTION I TRIED). The fact that the Alt +F10 restore D2D solution did not work…this did….because even though My bios did not hace a pendrive boot option, it recognised my pendrive as an alternate USB drive and it installed……….
In Spanish ( el que sabe sabe )
thank Youuuuuuuuuuuuuu
I have try all the step by step but on the stage command E:\boot>BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 F:
I got this message ‘Could not map drive partition to the associated volume device objects:
Access is denied. Any idea what went wrong. Please help. Thanks.
TRy formatting the pendrive again and just redo the steps. If that didn’t work, then use the utility that i have mentioned in the post. That can quickly make a pendrive bootable with windows.
Hi, i had a problem relating to point no. 20 ,you’ve asked to copy all files from DVD but didn’ mention how i mean through CMD or by selecting all files on dvd & pasting them on pen drive. Reply requested….
@ Avik Sinha You can do any of the methods, its upto you. You can also try the utility i have mentioned there, it will be easy for you to make the pendrive bootable. The utility does all these steps for you.
This obviously won’t work under XP as diskpart doesn’t support removable disks. I just ran across a nice app called Bootsage that works great under Windows XP as well. Link here: http://firesage.com/bootsage
gr8 dude keep it up…..
Will need this, am going to install windows 7 in my netbook it doesn’t have an optical drive.
dear amal,
nice one. the place i am working from right now doesnt allow me to download the little exe file, so was following the steps out.
i met with a little problem.
when i was running the command bootsect.exe/nt60 directly on the disk, it didnt have the reqd file.
had to modifya bit by first opening the boot folder on the disk. everything else fine, till now. currently copying files to usb drive. will post once successful or failed, either way. :)
cheers for this simple method.
PS- have to do all this coz a friend’s win7 lappy needs to be formatted and it doesnt accept a dvd – prob with the lenovo slot loader :(
any solutions on it? why it might have gone kaput?
not working.
nothing happens on the laptop other than a single blinking underscore at the top left corner. any key i press, it restarts and gets stuck again. :(
dear amal,
sorry for putting so many comments. discard all of these if u please.
my main mistake was – i didnt run command prompt as admin.
and a few other oversights. doing the whole process a third time, i have now succeeded without much of a problem.
thanks and sorry for all the stupid comments i put up.
Its ok Yatindestel. I am happy to hear that you have done the steps correctly and its now working fine or you.
Nice, thanks for sharing…
please help i get this http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8796/dsc00001tv.jpg
if you get this error after running all the commands and formatting the pendrive using fat32, then get the windows 7 USB/DVD tool and try using it to install windows 7 in the pendrive. It will work.
apps doesn’t work my pen isn’t detected i have OCZ THROTTLE 16BG. In Windows 7 everything is fine with the pen
Is your Pendrive NTFS or Fat32 Formatted ?
YES, like i said before In Windows 7 is everything ok
Try these steps, first format the pendrive in Fat32 Format, then make sure it is plugged into the USB 2.0 port other than the eSata port.
hey, i followed the instruction as you described above.but i have a problem while rebooting,i.e when i set the first priority to USB,saving and restarting the system then it says “Cannot read from the disk,press ALT + CTRL + DEL to restart)..
i stuck here could you please help me out from this?
Thanks
.-= subodh´s last blog ..Everything about transparency in all the browsers =-.
Format the pendrive in Fat32 format and try it it will work.
Hello!
I have a Lenovo S10-2 netbook, and my preinstalled XP died. I want to install Win7 instead. For first, ive tried this method:
http://www.ditii.com/2009/01/29/guide-to-install-windows-7-beta-on-lenovo-ideapad-s10-netbook-tips-using-usb-pen-drive/
when i was at ASSIGN part, it didnt worked for me, but a guy in comments said, its still works, if ASSIGN fail.
the setup didnt booted. (boot disk failure…etc) Than i found this article. (btw iam using XP in my desktop PC, where i want to make my pendrive to be installer)
format to fat32, than back to NTFS, everything fine, until step 13. it gives me a huge list, with commands, or dunno. than i type ASSING. its work this time, BUT. after that, in My Computer it says the drive in unformatted, do you want to format? So its like a new drive. So i stucked at that point, where i have to do bootsect.exe part, couse the drive is alrdy in “unformatted” state.
Btw iam usin Kingston Datatraveller G2 (4gb)
could you help me please?
thanks :)
Ya sure. If you feel uncomfortable with the commands no prob. Just use the utility that i have mentioned above in the post. It will automate all the commands and you can easily get windows 7 setup on your pendrive.
yaar AMAL……what do u mean by utility…….
i faced same problem…..i don’t understand…..
What i meant for utility is software.
Thanx for the process. Its the simplest to follow however when i type the list disk command it doesnt show the Pen drive. Is there any alternate solution to see the Pen drive listed or am i doing something wrong
Yes the pendrive wont get listed if you are running Windows Xp and doing the above process. How ever you can try using the utility to do this process quickly and install windows 7 easily from a pendrive.
“Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press Enter.”
Why?
=(
You need to do the process again by formatting the pendrive in Fat32 format. It will work.
The Guide really works, and the program to automatize the process of creating the bootable pendrive its even better!!!!! GREAT ARTICLE the easier i’ve read THX very much