Installing Windows 7 from a USB flash stick

David M Williams
Sunday, 03 May 2009 06:45

Business IT - Technology

Although not widely published, the Windows 7 disc contains a tool to make disks bootable. Logically enough, it is in the “boot” subdirectory. So, type in CD BOOT and press enter. Your command prompt should now indicate you are working in the C:\WIN7\BOOT folder.

The tool we’re interested in is called BOOTSECT. Technically, this program isn’t really there to make USB drives bootable (although it can do it.)

The stated purpose is to update the master boot code on hard drives to upgrade them from Microsoft’s older NTLDR technology as used by Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, to its newer BOOTMR booting technology as used by Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

We’re not actually updating a boot sector on a hard drive but that doesn’t matter, this tool still works perfectly for our purpose.

Remember what your USB drive letter is – or check now if you forgot. For this example I’ll assume it is drive letter G:.

Type the command BOOTSECT /NT60 G: and press enter. Be sure to replace the G: with your actual USB stick’s drive letter.

A message will display that the target volume will be update with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode, and then shortly after a message that this was successfully achieved.

There is just one final step. Copy all the extracted Windows 7 files and folders to the USB stick. Make sure you copy them to the root of the USB stick; don’t copy the Win7 folder you made above but rather the contents of that folder.

You now have a bootable Windows 7 USB stick that you can use to boot any computer or laptop or netbook from. You may find you have to set your target computer to boot from removable media but that’s the simple part. All the hard work is done and now you can try out Windows 7 without a DVD required.