There are lot of methods to create a bootable pendrive. Each of these steps is explained in detailed manner.
A common use of bootable USB drive is to flash windows.Booting from a removable media such as a USB drive allows you to perform diagnostics on a computer that is having trouble booting from the hard drive.You can also use the flash drive to install windows,instead of using the old windows installation windows cd.
Before we begin,it is important to make USB as the first boot device in BIOS.If you donot see a USB device in the list of bootable devices,your BIOS is not capable of booting to a USB device.
FOR WINDOWS 7 USERS:
SOFTWARE METHOD(USING RUFUS):
Rufus is one of the best and useful method to create a bootable pendrive.
1.Download rufus from here.
DOWNLOAD
2. There is no need to install it,just double click it.
3. Now select your volume device label.
4. After that click the drive image to select the windows or ubuntu iso file.
You don't need to make any changes.If its windows.iso ,it will automatically select the NTFS file system and if it is a ubuntu,it will switch to FAT32.
5.Click start, a dialog box will appear that all of your usb data will be deleted and the USB formatted.
If you have any files in your usb then this is the time to back it up.
Click ok.
The program is very fast.It will require only about 4 minutes to finish,depending on the speed of your USB drive.
ALL DONE.
COMMAND PROMPT METHOD:
1.Open the windows command by clicking start,typing cmd in the search text field,right click on the cmd icon and Run as administrator.
2. It will open the command prompt which looks like this:
FOR WINDOWS 8 USERS:
1.Press window key and then press 'c'. You will see the command prompt icon.Right click on the icon and select "Run as administrator" from the bottom bar. It will open the command prompt as shown above.
THE FOLLOWING STEPS ARE SAME FOR BOTH WINDOWS USERS.
1.Ensure your USB device is plugged in, then type "diskpart" in the command prompt and press enter.
Before going to the next step,it will be good to disconnect all other external hard drives.Cause there is a probability that it could get formatted.Only one pen drive with minimum 4gb should be cconnected.
2.Type "list disk" in the command prompt and press enter.
3. You will see a listing of the disk drives connected to the computer.Find the disk number of your USB drive and type "select disk [usb disk #] "(for instance "select disk 1") inside the command prompt and then type "enter".
It should state that usb disk 1 is selected.(Refer to the image below)
4.Type the following commands,one by one, by pressing enter after each commands.
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS(may take time depending on the size of the usb drive,DONT PANIC!)
ASSIGN
EXIT
Congratulation, now the pen drive has become bootable.Now copy all the files from the Windows DVD or ISO file.
So open the windows folder and copy all the files by using ctrl+a and paste it inside the pen drive's root folder.(as shown).
After complete copy,your USB flash drive is now setup to be a bootable USB drive for windows 7 or 8.
Restart your computer,when bios screen appears press "F12"(depends on your pc),it will show the options to boot from CD/DVD drive,Hard drive, USB.Just go to USB and press enter.
And follow instructions.Thank you.!!
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