[How to] Install Windows 7, XP using USB

Now that people are rushing towards installing Windows 7, here’s something that will increases speed of Installation.

How many times you lost your patience while burning DVD/CD for each installation? You don’t need to do that.

The Era of silly DVD/ CD is totally phased out, and will be replaced by BluRay Drives in the near future.

So, What is the best and the Fastest way of installation?
Its USB drive! (Flash or External HDD). Here’s what you need to do. It’s simple but don’t make any blunders.

UPDATE: This guide has been updated to support all windows Installations.

Method1: Using WinToFlash (Easier)

Step 1. download WinToFlash from here and unzip.

Mount the Windows installation image (using PowerISO) or if you have installation DVD/CD, then well and good.

Step 2. Run the exe

Step 3. Select the source and target drive and hit next.

There you go, it`ll finish up automatically with a bootable USB.

Reboot into BIOS. Change settings to Enable “Boot from USB”, and give it the highest precedence. Save settings and reboot, You would reboot into installation.

Method 2: via inbuilt DiskPart (Harder) Try this only if you have problems with Method 1

Step 1. Preparing USB drive

Open command prompt, from Start > run > cmd. If you are on vista or Windows 7, you might need to run it as elevated administrator. You can do this by creating shortcut to “cmd” on desktop then right click > “Run as Administrator”.

Enter following commands –

> Diskpart

DISKPART> LIST DISK

Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
——–  ————-  ——-  ——-  —  —
Disk 0    Online           93 GB    13 MB
Disk 1    Online           8 GB    6 MB

Note down the number corresponding Disk number. 1 in my case

DISKPART> SELECT DISK 1

>CLEAN
>CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
>SELECT PARTITION 1     — This 1 remains same always.
>ACTIVE
>FORMAT FS=FAT32
>ASSIGN
>EXIT

Step 2. Copy Installed CD/DVD contents to USB drive

> xcopy e:\*.* /s/e/f f:\

where e:\ is your source DVD drive, f:\ is target USB drive

Step 3.Changing BIOS Settings

Reboot into BIOS. Change settings to Enable “Boot from USB”, and give it the highest precedence. Save settings and reboot, You would reboot into installation.

Wasn’t that easy? You can try More How To Guides Below –

How to Run Live Windows XP from a Portable USB Drive (Memory Stick)