Introduction: How to Make a Windows 7 or Windows 8 Bootable USB Stick or Smart Card

By Dev
About: I have been involved in the technology industry both Computers and Telecommunications for 35 years. I am not claiming to be a "Know-it-All" but what I do know I know well and what I dont know I am not afraid …

This Instructable will show you how to make a Windows 7 or 8 Bootable USB Device
                                                                     Either on a Thumb Drive or Smart Media Card ie: SD, CF.

Follow these steps exactly:

1.       Insert your USB drive or Smart Media Drive into your computer, browse my computer to verify the disk letter of your USB stick for future use

2.       Launch a DOS Box to do this Click Start and type in the Search Box   the letters      CMD      and press enter.

3.       Type the following commands

a.       DISKPART 

b.      LIST DISK 

Find your disk by number in the list this is imperative you get it right otherwise you will be formatting the wrong drive, Remember drives in there formatted capacity are usually a bit less that the retail size ie: 32GB = 29.0 gb in List Disk, 64 GB CF card = 57 or 58 gb in Select Disk. And so on.  So look at size, use your common sense and be careful.  If in doubt you can check with me at my website http://www.stupidlysimpletutorials.net. Drivers can be found here too!! If you log into the NAS under System Login

c.       SELECT DISK  1   Where 1 is equal to your disk number listed above.

d.      CLEAN

e.      CREATE  PARTITION PRIMARY

f.        SELECT PARTITION 1

g.       ACTIVE

h.      FORMAT FS=NTFS

i.         ASSIGN

j.        EXIT

4.       Now insert your Windows 7 Install disk or find a good ISO of it on your hard drive and extract it to a folder you can remember.  Using a good windows DVD is the easiest way.

5.       Now go back to the DOS Box and type the following

k.       Assuming your DVD drive is D: type the following command

l.         D:

m.    CD BOOT 

n.      Or  manually change to the drive by typing the following

o.      Now you should be at the directory Boot on your CD image, now type the following.

p.      BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H:    (Where h: is the letter of your USB Stick, there is a space between EXE and the front slash & between the NT60 AND THE H:)

q.      Now go back to the root of your DVD  image by typing CD\    . And type the following.

r.        Xcopy *.* /e   H:   where H is the letter of your USB stick. (There is a space between xcopy and *.*, between *.* and forward slash e and between the /e and H:

s.       Once all files are copied you will be ready to use the boot stick in any computer that supports USB bootable media.

t.        If your computer has a onetime boot option F key use that in lieu of changing it in BIOS . It is usually F8 or F11 or F12

u.      After you finish copying the setup files to the USB device you can now add any other driver folders you may have or Program installers to make your one-stop-shop disk.

6.       Enjoy

For more neat things and files and downloads check out my website at
http://www.stupidlysimpletutorials.net