Microsoft Windows 7 comes on a bootable DVD, using which you can install Windows 7 on your computer. But Microsoft has created a tool that allows you to create a bootable Windows 7 USB pendrive using which you can install Windows 7. The main reason for this is slower data transfer from DVD drives compared to USB pendrives. This article tells you how to create a bootable USB disk for Windows 7.
Note : Bootable Windows 7 USB disk works only on systems which allow you to boot off an USB device. Please make sure and check your system manual (or BIOS settings) that you have such a system.
Requirements
- Windows 7 DVD
- A blank USB stick with at least 4GB capacity.
- Your computer’s BIOS must support booting off a USB disk
Procedure
- Insert your USB stick in one of USB ports in your computer.
- Open the Computer folder in Windows which lists all the drives and disks attached to your system.
- Format your USB stick with NTFS format. To do this, right-click on the USB drive icon and select Format as shown. When the Format dialog appears, select File system type as NTFS and click Start.
- Insert Windows 7 DVD in your DVD drive. Close down the installation dialog if it appears.
- Make sure you have set not to hide any files. To see how, read this article : Show hidden files in Windows 7
- Copy all the contents of the Windows DVD onto the USB stick. To this, open the DVD drive, press Ctrl + A to select all the contents, followed by Ctrl + C to copy them. Then open the USB stick drive, and press Ctrl + V. Wait till all the files and folder are copied to the USB stick.
- Open an elevated command prompt. To see how, read this article : Open elevated command prompt in Windows 7
- In the elevated command prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each line. We assume that your USB stick drive is H:
H:
cd boot
bootsect /nt60 H: - Close the elevated command prompt. Close all open folders.