How to install Windows 7 from USB drive

neildeadman

I’ve had my HP Mini 110 netbook for around 6 months now and I have to say its a big part of my day-to-day life. Its never far from my reach and makes a fantastic machine to browse the Internet with. HP pre-installed Windows XP Home, but when Microsoft released Windows 7, I purchased a copy and installed it. This was no easy task, as netbook’s (as you’ll know) aren’t supplied with CD\DVD drives in-built and at the time, I was unable to get the one I had working (a big bulky 51/4” monster!).

I’ve just purchased a Dell Inspiron laptop (with Core i5 processor) so wanted to re-install Windows 7 on my netbook, to refresh things and return the netbook to the job I had intended. Web browsing.

Now I could use the USB DVD drive I purchased to use with my netbook (and other machines) but I recently purchased a 16GB USB stick and thought this would be a much nicer and quicker way of installing Windows. You’ll need a USB stick that has a minimum of 4GB capacity, although there are tools that can reduce the size of the Windows 7 installation files, I didn’t use them. Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Plug the USB stick in to a free USB port and move any existing files to a safe location.
  2. Open a Command Prompt with administrative rights
    (Click Start > All Programs > Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.)
  3. Type DISKPART and then hit [Enter].
  4. Now type LIST DISK and note down the disk number for your USB stick.
  5. Next, type the commands below in order, replacing DISK 1 with the correct disk number you noted down in the previous step:
    SELECT DISK 1
    CLEAN
    CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
    SELECT PARTITION 1
    ACTIVE
    FORMAT FS=NTFS     (this will take a few seconds to complete)
    ASSIGN
    EXIT
    (Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute a further command)
  6. Insert your Windows 7 DVD into your DVD drive.
  7. Open My Computer and note down the drive letters that are assigned to the DVD drive and USB stick. I will assume that the DVD drive is D: and the USB stick is U: for the remainder of this post.
  8. Go back to the command prompt window and the following commands:
    D: CD BOOT
    CD BOOT
  9. Still in the command prompt, type the following command to update the USB stick with BOOTMGR compatible code:
    BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 U:
  10. Copy the contents of the Windows 7 DVD to the USB stick using Windows Explorer (or your preferred method).
  11. Change the BIOS of the machine you are installing Windows 7 onto to let it boot from the USB stick.
  12. Install Windows 7 as normal.

Microsoft have also released a tool to assist with this process that can be downloaded from here. This is a wizard style tool that does everything for you (except install Windows 7!!).

Neil

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