We all know about bootable Linux Live CD/DVD ISO images that we can use just by booting off the respective media. We can also create USB media using these Live ISO images. There are many popular Linux distributions that offer these Live images such as Mint Linux or Ubuntu.
But not many people know that we can also have a full featured Windows 10 installation on a USB pendrive or USB hard drive. Even after Microsoft has done away with “Windows To Go” feature in the latest version of Windows 10, we can still create a working Windows installation on an external USB hard drive using FlashBoot.
Here is how you can install full featured Windows 10 on a portable USB hard drive that is connected to your PC using a USB data cable:
- Download Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft using Windows 10 ISO Downloader.
- Download FlashBoot Free from https://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/ and install it on your PC.
- Attach your USB hard drive to your PC using the USB cable and let Windows detect it. If you have any important files on it, make a backup as this hard drive will be formatted in the next steps.
- Launch FlashBoot, click on Next and then choose Full OS → USB from the list of options, click Next again.
- Choose Windows 10 for UEFI based computers and click on Next.
- Select the ISO image that you downloaded in the first step and then click on Next.
- Select any Windows 10 edition from the list. There are no restrictions of using only Enterprise or Education editions. Then click on Next.
- Choose the external USB hard drive from the list of detected USB storage devices and click on Next.
- Select a volume label and then click on the Format Now button. This is the last step, after which your external USB hard drive will be formatted and files will be copied to it.
It will take many minutes before the process is finished. In the end, you will have a bootable Windows to Go USB hard drive. You can boot into Windows using this external USB hard drive on any PC. The same steps can be used with a USB flash drive or pendrive.