Making a USB flash drive bootable is fairly easy, just follow the steps below, however the bootable USB stick you make, will only function properly on a computer in BIOS mode.
- Start the Command Prompt.
- Change drive to the USB device (e.g. E:):
C:>E: - Start the DISKPART executable:
E:>diskpart - In the DISKPART window list the disks:
DISKPART> list disk
You should now be able se all disks on the system - Select the disk that corresponds to the USB device:
DISKPART> select disk 1 - Prepare the disk with the Clean command:
DISKPART> clean - Create the primary partition:
DISKPART> create partition primary - Select the primary partition:
DISKPART> select partition 1 - Mark the selected partition as the active partition
DISKPART> active - You may now format the partition:
DISKPART> format fs=fat32 quick - Assign the drive letter to the device:
DISKPART> assign - Exit the DISKPART executable:
DISKPART> exit - Insert your Windows 7 installation DVD in your computer
- Open the command prompt with admnistrative rights
- Change the directory to the BOOT directory on the DVD.
- Execute the command BOOTSECT /NT60 [drive letter] from the DVD. (Drive Letter is your USB stick)
-
Example: E:boot>bootsect /nt60 f: Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode. F: (\?Volume{7c21f493-5fbf-11df-8c4e-0026b98067f8}) Successfully updated FAT32 filesystem bootcode. Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.
This completes the process – what you now have is a bootable USB stick, which is ready to receive the executables that you want to boot up with from the USB port.
by Jens Vejrup Lassen