Install Windows Vista from Bootable USB Flash Memory Drive

Barrack Says

03. Jul, 2007

i follow all the instruction but my flash drive (Apacer Steno HC110 2 GB and Data Traveller 1 GB) can’t boot. Cek with Disk Management Properties from my flas drive still not showing able to boot

km Says

10. Jul, 2007

@Barrack,

Do you set your computer bios to boot from your USB memory drives

happy Says

10. Sep, 2007

hi…..please help me..

i hav windows vista cd but it is not bootable….. i want to make it bootable… please tell me how can i do so….reply me soon…

thanx.!!

km Says

10. Sep, 2007

@Happy

Change your computer bios bootable setting to CD rom as first bootable source. Then your computer will boot the windows vista CD first after your computer hard drive.

Randall Says

27. Sep, 2007

There are two important steps missing from these instructions.

First, you need to open a DOS prompt, find BOOTSECT.EXE, and in the command window, type:

\Bootsect.exe /nt60 /

Make sure and replace the with your path and with your letter. For example, if your path was “C:\MyPath” and your USB drive was letter “F”, then your line would be:

“C:\MyPath\Bootsect.exe /nt60 F:” (without the quotes).

Make sure you do not have any command windows open that reference the drive or have the drive being written to.

Secondly, you need to get the HP USB format tool available from HP’s website and format the USB drive using that utility rather than the formatter that comes with Vista or XP. I have had many cases where this formatter worked but the internal did not.

Goos luck!

Niraj Maharjan Says

16. Jan, 2008

plz send me a vista from bootable usb flash memory drive i can used this software

William Says

06. Mar, 2008

does vista have xcopy, if so where do I type xcopy command.

william Says

06. Mar, 2008

Sorry about that dumb question, it must have been a senior moment. command promt duh

km Says

06. Mar, 2008

Willian,

The XCopy command still works on windows vista under command prompt

Oscar Says

08. Mar, 2008

hey, is that wokr with WINDOWS XP?

kkslider Says

09. Mar, 2008

Will these instructions also work with creating a Windows XP Bootable USB drive too?

km Says

10. Mar, 2008

Oscar & KKslider

In theory, Windows XP also work at portable USB drive

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tc Says

31. Mar, 2008

When I do a search, these exact same instructions are posted everywhere. I have yet to see anyone post who has actually gotten this to work. Flash drives apparently are only good for storing applications and running them from within Windows. Or using it as a floppy disk to boot to DOS to flash a bios… but thats about all you can do.

jimbo Says

19. Apr, 2008

Booting from usb is EASY if you read the instructions, if it doesn’t work first time READ SOME MORE and google lots!

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20. Apr, 2008

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Alfie Says

12. Jun, 2008

This one will do for windows xp, http://www.jcmiras.net/surge/p96.htm

Matt Says

17. Jun, 2008

Install Windows XP from Bootable USB Flash Drive
Install Windows Vista from Bootable USB Flash Memory Drive

Flash Drive 4.0 GB
Flash Drive 8.0 GB

xcopy is located in Windows xp, Vista (Command Prompt)

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

freddyzdead Says

24. Jun, 2008

How can so-called expert leave out making flash drive bootable?

The steps posted by Randall above won’t work.

Put Vista DVD in drive.
CMD window (start -> run -> cmd.exe)
E: (assuming E: is your CD/DVD drive. means Enter key.)
cd BOOT
bootsect.exe /FAT32 f:
(assuming f: is your flash drive)

Flash drive should now boot if your bios supports it and USB is set
as first boot device.

This is assuming your flash drive is already formatted to FAT32. Formatting flash drives to NTFS is not a good idea. It can ruin them.

If you have trouble, then format the flash drive with a utility such as the HP one, then start over from the beginning.

freddyzdead Says

24. Jun, 2008

My previous post didn’t come out the way I typed it.

E: (assuming E: is your CD/DVD drive. means Enter key.)

should be

E: [cr] (assuming E: is your CD/DVD drive. [cr] means Enter key.)

I’ve done it differently this time. It means you type E: and then
press the Enter key.

Now the bloody captcha tells me I can’t add. What crap.

freddyzdead Says

24. Jun, 2008

OK last time; I’m sorry, I was wrong. The correct command is:

bootsect.exe /nt60 f: (f: is your flashdrive)

Now you should be right. Btw if the flashdrive is 4 gigs or more, it is already formatted as fat32, so there shouldn’t be any reason to
format it again.

gerhard Says

05. Jul, 2008

When I try to boot from the usb flash drive (8GB formated in fat32), I get “Invalid Partition Table”.
I followed exactly the above instructions 1 through 4.
Thanks in advance, Gerhard

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12. Jul, 2008

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hal Says

20. Jul, 2008

Worked on a 4GB Micro SD card connected using a USB micro SD card reader on my tablet which has DVD ROM.

Thanks!

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Charle Says

12. Aug, 2008

Ok, everything has worked, got Vista to install, but during the install, when vista restarts my system, it either A) Goes back to the install from beginning or B) if I select "Boot from HDD" I get an error saying missing Boot File (Not sure exact error).  My internal DVD-ROM is out of commision. 

Anyone know what im doing wrong?!

Mick Thompson Says

29. Aug, 2008

Tried it. It works but is actually slower than installing from disk. I’m using a 35MB/sec flash drive.  Don’t forget during "xcopy" that d:\ becomes your source dvd drive and e:\ becomes your destination USB flash drive socket. I’m looking forward to trying it with USB 3.0!

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16. Sep, 2008

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phil Says

16. Sep, 2008

Have no idea how you guys are getting these DOS commands to work, or where they came from, none of them are ‘recognized as internal or external commands’. "list disk"?, "bootsect"? They are not valid commands. At least thats what the command prompt is telling me.

xXephis Says

14. Oct, 2008

Randall, THANK YOU VERY MUTCH!
bootsect /nt60 X: works perfect for me!!!
i think with this method you cam make every disk bootable on usb-stick!

xXephis Says

14. Oct, 2008

@phil: read again… type in “diskpart” then you are able to use “list disk” and so on…

Chris Says

24. Oct, 2008

Excellent, combining all advice above gave me a boot installer USB key.  It is much faster to utilize than the DVD (14mins vs 31mins on one system) and there is another advantage; loading SATA drivers for our various hardware platfroms right on to the key makes AHCI utilization a snap.  I suspect this will be better than PXE.  Thanks!

For those who don’t know what to see from diskpart or bootsect, here is a transcript of the command prompt window:

—–

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\XXXXX>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6001
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: XXXXXXXXXXX

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ###  Status      Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
——–  ———-  ——-  ——-  —  —
Disk 0    Online        60 GB      0 B
Disk 1    Online       186 GB      0 B
Disk 2    Online      7648 MB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> create partition primary

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART> format fs=fat32

100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

DISKPART> assign

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart…

—–

G:\>cd boot

G:\boot>bootsect.exe /nt60 h:
Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

H: (\\?\Volume{da698300-9ac7-11dd-991f-001d09382fbe})

Successfully updated FAT32 filesystem bootcode.

Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

G:\boot>

Kalmi Says

14. Nov, 2008

The command “bootsect.exe /nt60 h:” is only needed if you are not under vista… Vista’s diskpart does it for you imho… It’s working for me without that line….

Sam Says

18. Nov, 2008

Ugh, my friend accidentally “cleaned” my D:/ Drive, instead of the USB Flash Drive. How do I reverse this process, as it seems my D:/ Drive has been deactivated or something. Please help me!

km Says

18. Nov, 2008

@Sam

You can try using free data recovery program to recover D: drive.

knowitall Says

07. Dec, 2008

Some experts you guys are…..You can’t run a bootable windows on a USB Flash drive. When the Flashdive version of windows loads, it will reinitialize and redetect all USB devices, including the disk it is running from, so in effect, its killing itself.

Martin Says

27. Dec, 2008

When i load diskpart and typed list disk, I cant find my USB Flash Drive! What can I do?

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11. Jan, 2009

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Anuraag Says

21. Jan, 2009

Thanks.
Something weird is happening
I executed bootsect.exe /nt60 M: (M was my pen drive)
When I inserted the pen drive in laptop (boot from USB was enabled),
it showed me,
BOOTMGR is missing,
Press any key to restart.

What should I do now?
My laptop is really locked now, I want to install any windows OS in it(XP is not able to partition properly shows some temporary file error and I dont have CD/DVD rom in it) and now i tried vista, all this is happening.
Please help

Anuraag Says

21. Jan, 2009

and sorry forgot to mention, I tried the bootsec.exe from both dvd as well as hard disk drive.

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21. Jan, 2009

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Woter Says

25. Jan, 2009

…Have all worked for me using the method.

A few tips if I may:

1. Make sure your BIOS boot order is set so the USB device is BEFORE the hard disk. If the USB device still doesn’t boot, try it in another machine (if you can). You don’t have to install on that machine. Just exit at the first prompt. If you don’t have another machine, make sure your BIOS firmware (software version of your BIOS) is up-to-date.

2. You need vista, Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7 to see a removable disk (USB Key) in disk part. XP cannot see this type of device. Randall Points out a work around for XP.

3. To copy the files from the original source, you must use XCOPY. It is a DOS command (command prompt or CMD) that has been around (probably) from year dot. The switches (options) tell xcopy what to do. If you type xcopy /?, the options are listed so you can see what they do. XCOPY will copy hidden and system files. Most users probably don’t have these switched on, so if you drag and drop, these files would be missed.

4. The original source can be the DVD or a Virtual mounted DVD image (ISO).

5. Try and copy directly from the source to the USB key. This limits chances of file corruptions. IMHO windows isn’t very good at copying files in one piece (as opposed to *nix or using RoboCopy.

6. Probably the most IMPORTANT point, is that not all usb keys will work. If you are trying to use a key that was given away as a freebe from a course or exhibition, I suggest you forget it. Even if they are have the capacity, they will use very low quality chips and be very slow, so this will defeat part of the object of this exercise. (A fast install experience).

Time for bed. I hope these pointers may help some of you out. I promise you, it does work - exceptionally well. (My next step is to try this method with XP and Server 2003)

If you at first don’t succeed, try try again

P.S. You are correct, I didn’t pass ‘math’, but I did pass mathS or mathematics!! Grrr

Woter Says

25. Jan, 2009

Oh and if you try and use an XP machine to copy the contents of your Vista DVD to the DiskPart’d key, XP won’t recognise it. XP will try and format it again.

darcwolf Says

30. Jan, 2009

I got everything working, but when it chooses a hard drive to install to no hard drives show up on the list, anyone know why?

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12. Feb, 2009

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The Man Says

08. Mar, 2009

Format the USB stick as NTFS

Make USB Volume Active
Open up an (Administrator) command prompt window
Run diskpart.exe and then set your drive and partition to point to the stick. Make sure you set the partition as Active.
Do this by typing the following:
1. list disk (to determine the disk number for your drive, in my case 2)
2. Select disk
3. active
4. exit

Create Boot Sector
There’s a tool in Vista called bootsect.exe. Cant find it? Its on the Vista DVD itself in the Boot directory.
Run bootsect /nt60

Copy over Vista and Boot Files
From the Vista DVD copy over the
* Boot directory
* Sources directory and
* the files in the root directory
and you should be good to go!!

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tora Says

09. Mar, 2009

All works. Don’t listen to negative comments.
I have tried this with both Vista and Windows 7.
XP does not work (as has been mentioned).

Great, simple tutorial!

Dave Says

27. Mar, 2009

This also works for any MicroSD card.

andy Says

03. Apr, 2009

How come my flash drive doesn’t show under list disk. I’ve tried 4 different flash drives and now i’m wondering if there’s only specific usb drives this will work from.

Thanks!

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bibab Says

01. May, 2009

no problem thx for tutorial

Per-Ola Says

03. May, 2009

“…How come my flash drive doesn’t show under list disk. I’ve tried 4 different flash drives and now i’m wondering if there’s only specific usb drives this will work from.

Thanks!…”

The “diskpart.exe” program under windows XP does NOT list USB flash drives when you do the “list disk” command. It only displays IDE, SATA, SCSI, and USB/FireWire connected IDE/SATA drives.

Anyone has a work around?

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Mark Says

16. May, 2009

I’m trying to create a partion on a flash drive, 1gb sandisk. Plan to use this flash drive to boot on Itanium to get firmware installed. Diskpart says the device is too small to create the partiton. If I’m not putting the OS files on it, it should need large amounts of room - no?

BooH Says

31. May, 2009

Is it possible to install Vista over a network using a shared dvd drive?
ie i don’t have a flash or dvd drive, so i share a laptops dvd drive over our network & boot from that?

Elissa Says

28. Jun, 2009

Worked like a charm thanks!

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11. Jul, 2009

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22. Jul, 2009

Giving this a bash.

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janmike Says

11. Aug, 2009

help plz!

what will i type when my DVD ROM is “F:”
should it be like this?
xcopy f:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ or what?
then drive e: would be the assigned drive for the flash drive or what?
please help me.
Thanks…

janmike Says

11. Aug, 2009

help please!

what will i type when my DVD ROM is “F:”
should it be like this?
xcopy f:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ or what?
then drive “e:” would be the assigned drive for the flash drive or what?
please help me.
Thanks…

Ryan Says

26. Aug, 2009

KM,

Contrary to what some of the chuckleheads post here, these instructions work great as posted. Thank you.

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Thariq Says

09. Sep, 2009

It works great, thanks for you support.

Thariq

Curro Says

23. Sep, 2009

I followed all the instructions and I’m experiencing difficulties with installing Windows Vista from USB.

it doesn’t automatically installs Windows Vista, but it rather stays on the boot (ms-dos) screen hanging there with the letter/drive C:\

It just waits for me to fill things up, but I have no clue what I should write.

Can someone please offer me any help.

Thanks.

entrails Says

29. Sep, 2009

Cant get part 2 to work

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

the “e:\” is the name of your usb flash drive right? so you put in the letter u have on your drive?

Plz help me!!!

Jakko Says

07. Nov, 2009

Thanks for the guide. This worked brilliantly.

I’ve installed Windows now, and I’m ready to start useing the flash drive for ReadyBoost.

How do I revert these settings to get the UFD back to it’s former state?