Earlier today, I tried to install Windows 7 on my 8GB SSD-equipped Acer Aspire One netbook using a flash drive. The outcome was a complete disaster, or so I thought. Though I didn’t manage to install Windows 7 on my darn old little netbook, I did learn how to make a bootable USB flash disk, and that’s what’s important. I was able to install Windows 7 on another laptop of mine, btw, which could only mean that the fault really lies with my weakly specced netbook.
Anyway, I wanted to share what I learned today and tell you how exactly I was able to install Windows 7 on my other laptop, a Neo Basic B2175N, by only using a bootable USB flash drive. Yep, I didn’t burn single DVD. No, sir. Interested? Here’s how.
Installing Windows 7 with a USB flash drive - What you need
The Windows 7 beta build 7000 ISO weighs a hefty 2.5GB of disk space, so a flash drive with at least 4GB of space is required. Also, you need the following programs: BootSect, USB_prep8, and PeToUSB. All of which can be downloaded in a handy package that I’ve uploaded here — [download link]
When you have everything ready, insert your flash drive, plug in your notebook/laptop/netbook or whatever you call it to AC power and get ready to create a Windows 7 bootable USB flash drive.
Installing Windows 7 with a USB flash drive - Preparation
1. Download the packed RAR file which I gave you the link to earlier and extract its contents to your computer’s Desktop (this makes things easier). This contains the three programs you will need to make a bootable USB flash drive, which are BootSect, USB_prep8, and PeToUSB.
Now that the bootsect and USB_prep8 folders are on your Desktop, do the following.
2. Open the USB_prep8 folder, find USB_prep8.cmd and run it, pressing any key to continue when prompted. This will initiate PeToUSB. PeToUSB will be used to format your flash drive, so it is suggested that you back up any valuable data that you might have on your flash drive before proceeding. Once the backup’s done or you are sure it’s OK for you to format your flash drive, see the PeToUSB options and make sure that “Enable Disk Format”, “Quick Format” and “Enable LBA (FAT16X)” are checked. See photo below.
After you click start and agree to what comes next, your USB flash drive will be formatted, and the next step would be to configure it so that it becomes bootable. Close PeToUSB and the small command prompt window that you opened earlier.
3. Make your USB flash drive bootable using bootsect. Here’s how.
Assuming that the bootsect folder you extracted earlier is already on your desktop, simply do the following. Open a command prompt window by pressing the Windows key + R (or going to Start > Run > typing “cmd” without the quotation marks and hitting Enter).
At the command prompt, type the following word for word:
1. “cd Desktop”
2. “cd bootsect”
3. “BootSect.exe”
4. “BootSect.exe /nt60 d:” (wherein “d” stands for the designated letter of my USB flash drive; exchange it with yours if it’s different, since it could be e, f, g, etc.)
Here’s a photo of what it should look like:
And if all goes well, you should be able to read the following message: “Bootcode was successfully updated on all volumes”. This means you now have a bootable USB flash drive. Congratulations!
5. Copy the Windows 7 install files to your bootable USB flash drive. Perhaps the easiest step in all of this minor hackery, is this. Find your Windows 7 beta ISO file, extract its contents using WinRAR, and copy the resulting files (all of them) into your empty and newly configured to boot USB flash drive. Once that’s done, safely remove it, and use it to boot any computer to install Windows 7 on it. It’s that simple.
Installing Windows 7 with a USB flash drive - What now?
Now that you have a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows 7 install files inside it, you’ll be able to install Windows 7 on any machine, provided that the hardware supports it. I may have been unsuccessful in installing Windows 7 on my Aspire One, but I did succeed in installing it on my other laptop, which proves that the bootable USB flash drive I made works.
Hopefully, this little thing I’ve done helps someone out there. Maybe someone like me who didn’t have a spare blank DVD on hand when I wanted to install Windows 7 so bad. :)
“Maybe someone like me who didn’t have a spare blank DVD on hand when I wanted to install Windows 7 so bad. :)”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thanks :]
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Matt Reply:
June 20th, 2009 at 1:36 am
thanks for the help man, great walkthrough!
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January 15th, 2009 at 9:15 am
THANK YOU VERY MUCH I APPRECIATE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS.
they were easy to understand better than microsoft =D
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David Gonzales Reply:
January 15th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Took you just around a half hour, didn’t it? You’re welcome! :)
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January 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
While i was extracting the windows 7 to my flash drive
WinRAR gave me two errors which are-
1)! C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.iso: Write error in the file sources\install.wim. Probably the disk is full
It gives it to me twice!
can anyone help??
The picture for my usb/flashdrive
is now the setup picture (the one for windows 7!)
[Reply to this comment]
January 15th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Oh and when i click on the windows 7 installer it gives me this message
k:/setup.exe is not a valid win32 application.
[Reply to this comment]
David Gonzales Reply:
January 15th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
How big is that flash drive of yours? You have to use something larger than 2.5GB to accomodate the entire istaller. A 4GB drive will do.
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tacoman Reply:
January 16th, 2009 at 7:12 am
oh sorry mine was 2.0
lol
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January 15th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
i get”bootset.exe is not a valid win32 application”
cansomeone help me??????????
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David Reply:
January 24th, 2009 at 9:25 am
probably because its supposed to be “bootsect.exe” not “bootset.exe”
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January 22nd, 2009 at 1:06 am
I can’t format my USB flash drive SanDisk Cruzer Contour 8GB with PEtoUSB
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David Gonzales Reply:
January 24th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
How are you doing it? Plug it in, go to My Computer, right-click its icon and select “Format”. That should work.
[Reply to this comment]
January 24th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
will this work for other OS’s? same procedure?
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David Gonzales Reply:
January 25th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Well, the “make USB flash drive bootable” part will work, but the “just copy OS install files from ISO to USB flash drive” won’t so easily. With Windows Vista and 7, I can confirm this method helps. Not so with XP and Mac OS X, far as I know.
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January 25th, 2009 at 1:02 am
kick ass dude, ive looked at a ton of guides and yours was the only one that worked (the rest were a copy paste of some other command line method which wasnt descriptive and didnt work out)!
4gb corsair voyager drive.
[Reply to this comment]
David Gonzales Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Glad I helped. :)
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January 27th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Help! When I open up PeToUSB and start the conversion I get an error saying FormatEx Error [11]: An Error Occurred Formatting the Drive. It does it everytime it get’s to 50 percent. I tried taking off Quick Format and still got the same error but it was closed to being finished when I took off Quick Format.
[Reply to this comment]
David Gonzales Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Try taking the flash drive and formatting it with your computer first. Go to My Computer, right click on that flash drive’s icon and select format. After that repeat the steps in formatting using PeToUSB: go to the USB_prep8 folder, run USB_prep8.cmd and “press any key to continue” like it says on the command prompt that it will open. The rest of the instructions are above. Good luck!
[Reply to this comment]
p saff Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 10:25 am
for those with problems formatting your usb drives does it have a u3 interface or partition installed on it. if so, then you most go into the u3 menu go to u3 settings and have the u3 menu uninstall u3 the formatters can unformat it because it is copy protected.
Thanks for the guide worked perfectly.
also side not when formatting the usb the windows formatter will not touch the u3 boot sector on the drive it reformats the rest
let me know if this helps at all.
[Reply to this comment]
David Gonzales Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Yes, perhaps the reason why some of them are having problems with making their flash drives bootable is because their drives have partitions that were put in them by the manufacturers. Thanks for sharing.
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January 28th, 2009 at 3:18 am
If you use UltraISO, it will do all this for you, just open the image in the program and under the ‘bootable’ tab, hit write disk image, and choose your flash drive. very quick, simple, one processed… what else could you want.
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p saff Reply:
February 4th, 2009 at 4:17 am
@jojopyro,
yes that does work but i do believe the idea was to make it free.
I had no problems with this at all. also ultraiso does have some problems with writing boot partitions especially if you also intend to make the flash drive to continue working as a normal flash drive without reformatting it again.
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February 4th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Who the man ??? David Gonzales the man im fairly computer savey but regaurding trying to get a iso image to boot from usb i spend a day searching the net trying everything and then a god like man appears on my screen telling me the way to do it thanks again i didnt want the easy way out and but a external dvd drive theres no fun in that
thanks once again
A PERFECT FORM OF INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION GETTING IT WRONG WOULD TAKE BUT AN IDIOT OF MEGA PROPORTIONS
[Reply to this comment]
David Gonzales Reply:
February 27th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
@robert, … thanks. :)
[Reply to this comment]
February 27th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
very very thanks
the instructions very clear,sleek and perfect
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March 2nd, 2009 at 4:04 pm
PeToUSB does not find my USB device even after I reformatted.
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March 2nd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Can I use any windows ISO?Or is it just for windows 7
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David Reply:
March 8th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
@mark, Yes. This also works for Windows XP and Vista.
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March 8th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
All is OK. It works fine.
Thank you very much.
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March 16th, 2009 at 3:36 am
It wouldn’t work with my flasdrive, it kept saying that there was an error. It wouldn’t format it, it is an 8gb flash disk.
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March 16th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Hey there is a german tutorial how to create this stick much easier without comandoline. Heres the link : http://www.free-blog.in/JBlog/82115/Windows+7+USB+Installation+von+XP+Erstellen+-+How+To.html
Greets
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March 19th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Worked for me like a charm…great instructions…Thanks!
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March 30th, 2009 at 12:00 am
I have a new Kingston Data Traveler 100 8 gig USB on which I want to carry Win7 Release Candidate and all of my apps and files. Can I create two partitions + NTFS format using Disk Management utility, then make the Win7 install partition bootable with diskpart commands, copy the Win7 files in there, put my apps and files in other partition and be good to go?
Geek Squad told me I might need a boot manager if I want to boot from more than one o.s. on the stick, but with just Win7, will it boot this way even with the other partition full of files? Thanks. Just askin.
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April 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
when I TRY to do the bootsect.exe is says
c/ documents and all tht
“/Desktop/bootsect/bootsect.exe
‘bootsect.exe’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file
PLEASE HELP!!!
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April 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
I agree with andros. This was an easy to understand process that I tried doing from someone else’s website last night and had a hard time.
You explained things perfectly and the pictures helped too.
Great Job!!
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April 10th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Thank you very much for this tutorial… to be honest I never have blank DVDs when I need them, so you saved my day! ;)
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April 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Thank You So Damn Much! This just made my day! You actually showed every single step rather than assuming and skipping… and it works. One tip for anyone using 8 gig drives, use HP formatting tool.
Right On Bro
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April 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
All of you instructions worked perfectly. I formatted the drive, got it to become a bootable drive, and copied the windows 7 data onto it. Unfortunately, from there I’ve had problems. I set the boot order in my bios to be removable(floppy) 1, CD 2, Hard Drive 3. I’m trying to install it onto a new hard drive, so I’m leaving my current Vista install alone. But whenever I try to boot from the USB stick, nothing happens. It goes past the floppy and CD and straight to the HD and loads Vista. Any ideas?
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Anonymous Reply:
April 27th, 2009 at 2:45 am
@ArthurKoB, You’re doing it wrong. You have to boot from “Generic USB flash drive” or something, not floppy or CD. Plug in the USB drive before turning the machine on, then go straight for the BIOS, choose boot from flash drive, Save and Exit, then wait. If during the POST you see a “Press such and such button to choose boot device”, press it, and choose Generic USB flash drive out of the options, or something similar.
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April 27th, 2009 at 1:36 am
Awesome! Instructions were clear as a bell. I have pulled my hair out before trying to get my thumbdrive bootable; this finally worked.
Thanks very much.
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April 27th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
thank you
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May 5th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Dude i tried installing Win7 build 7000 on my Acer aspire one 150 with a CF card bec i didnt have a 4gb usb stick and it keeps saying install.wim does not exist…
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May 5th, 2009 at 5:19 am
YESss,i got it to work…thanks David for the tutorial,saved my life!
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May 5th, 2009 at 6:50 am
nice tutorial..
thanks.. its work :)
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TORI Reply:
May 11th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Even Easier:
1. Open CMD.exe as administrator
2. Type diskpart
3. Type listdisk
4. Type select disk # (# of your flash drive)
5. Type Clean, Create Partition Primary, Select Partition 1, Active, Format FS=FAT32, Assign
6. Extract the downloaded iso with 7ZIP and copy the extracted contents to the flash drive.
7. Boot from the flash drive.
[Reply to this comment]
May 9th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Thank You David! Whateve methods they are suggesting here, Following your steps as a first time try worked well. Keep up the spread of knowledge
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May 15th, 2009 at 5:05 am
hey i did everything you typed, and it all worked, up until i booted the computer from my SanDisk USB drive. it booted but than it said something like: “BOOTMGR Missing”. i am seriously about to break this damn computer :( please help me. ill be home all day!
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greg Reply:
May 16th, 2009 at 6:01 am
@Andrew, you need to make sure your BIOS enables USB legacy and under Boot tab sees the USB drive (usually under HD) and is selected as first boot device. Next check if you have an (f10) one-time boot order selecter when you start back up and select it there (usually under HD) to boot. It will be one or the other. The only other BIOS issue might be the need for an update IF the USB options don’t appear AND the update specifies it is for USB in Read Me.
Next, I have found a better automated way to do the formatting of the installer on USB. Use UltraISO trial, load your ISE, click “Bootable” tab and then “Write Disk Image” and it does it all for ya.
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greg Reply:
May 16th, 2009 at 6:04 am
@greg obviously meant ISO above, as in load your ISO first into UltraISO trial, then select and burn as above.
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May 16th, 2009 at 5:50 am
is there a way so that u can have 2 differnert partitions so u can choose 2 different OS
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May 17th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Yes you could do a doal boot but you would have to
use a boot manager to set up two partitions. it then
shouls show two usbs in my compter then just fallow
the steps for any windows boot. linux is almost the same.
ps sorry if the spacing is off on this posting from my cell.
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May 17th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Excellent. The microsoft Tutorial of Diskpart Did not work lol. I am trying this… The step till copying the file worked perfectly fine… need to boot and test the installation. I think it Should work… Great Work DG! Give this piece of info to microsoft they have a very poor support on this using Diskpart ….
Superb!
Kingston DataTraveler 120
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May 17th, 2009 at 11:41 am
The boot up did not work… The BIOS shows boot from removable drive.. but when booting it says Disk Boo failure!
Hard Luck!
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May 17th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
thanks man…last time I tried making an USB stick boot-able, I’ve lost the logical partition from one of my HDD….so thanx a lot again, i hope your’s works.
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May 20th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
thank u
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May 21st, 2009 at 9:13 am
What about MBR, without it, the flash drive will not boot.
How to add MBR to a flash drive?
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May 24th, 2009 at 1:17 am
help
i did everything but when i boot from usb it didn’t boot after few seconds it boots from harddisk.can some body help
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June 1st, 2009 at 10:08 am
may be there is problem with windows file cause when I click on setup file it says ‘not a valid win32 file’
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June 1st, 2009 at 11:03 am
I did everything you outlined and received all of the same status/success messages. I then made my flash drive the first drive to boot, but when the machine restarted I received the following error:
file \boot\bcd
status 0xc000000e
an error ocurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data
Any ideas what I did wrong or can do?
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June 3rd, 2009 at 12:25 am
to add to my message above… I do have the file \boot\bcd on my flash drive. I’m wondering if it’s corrupt. I also tried the UltraISO trial version option which someone suggested and received the exact same error so perhaps there was an issue with the ISO file I downloaded with Windows7?
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p saff Reply:
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:37 am
@scot, i have had similar problems with xp and and vista installs on older machines. from what i could tell its a bios problem that doesn’t fully support a boot from a flash drive i may be wrong on that though. it either that or try making the bootable with boot sect before and after the files are there though it shouldn’t make a difference it worked once for me, don’t know why thought(maybe it was just luck or dying flash). i don’t think that the problem is the iso file but you can try re downloading it anyways)
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Scot Reply:
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Thanks for the response. I was digging around yesterday and found a comment in a forum by someone at MS who mentioned in an off-hand remark that you don’t need a bootable copy of Win7 Install to install Windows 7. You only need to extract the ISO on the machine where you want to do the install. I thought to myself… what? I have this already on my machine (it was one of the steps in your procedure). I couldn’t believe it. Why is everyone going through the headache of trying to make the flash drive bootable? Hmmmm. Well I decided to try it and what do you know? I now have a perfectly normal working version of Windows 7 and I didn’t even need to create the bootable drive.
Did anyone else realize this? Crazy!
[Reply to this comment]
gregrocker Reply:
June 9th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
@Scot, this of course works very well when installing from the Windows environment to a new partition you have created using Disk Management. You can even get the full format which is no longer included on installers since Vista. However, you need to boot from a disk or your stick if you want to install it clean to a drive which does not already have an OS where you can extract or mount the ISO.
[Reply to this comment]
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:45 am
DO NOT use a partition manager to create a new partition. It will often fail while shrinking and take all of your OS and data with it. On the other hand, if you use Disk Management utility to shrink the OS, then Create Volume, label, and format NTFS, it will NEVER fail and will also give you a full format (writing zeros) which is no longer even on the Vista or Win7 install disk. It is still a good idea to do a quick format from the install disk to assure compatibility with XP NTFS formatting.
[Reply to this comment]
June 9th, 2009 at 10:04 am
will this work with windows vista too?
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p saff Reply:
June 14th, 2009 at 2:16 am
@louie, yes it will work with vista. just were your getting an activated copy of windows vista i would like to know
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louie Reply:
June 14th, 2009 at 2:25 am
@p saff, well i’m trying it right now. i’ll report errors if
anything happens. thanks :3
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June 14th, 2009 at 2:11 am
After having skimmed through the comments and noticed an abundance of thank yous and such I figured I would add my own.
Thanks!
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June 16th, 2009 at 1:07 am
you’re right it works!.. now i have my installer of vista
(legit copy) usb version!.. viola!..
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June 20th, 2009 at 11:06 pm