Install Windows 7 from USB

Windows 7 is officially on the prowl, and that means a whole new crop of users are receiving the new operating system in the form of an ISO file. Sure, you could burn it to DVD and be on your way, but that’s so ordinary, and Netbook users are still up the creek. Why not build a little geek cred and install Windows 7 from USB? We’ll show you how to do it in just four simple steps.

Preparation

You’ll need to prepare a few downloads before you can get crackin’ with your USB-powered install of Windows 7:

• The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
• MBRWizard v2.0b for Windows XP/PE/2003 if your current OS is 32-bit, or…
  • MBRWizard v2.0b for Windows 64-bit if your current OS is 64-bit
• MagicISO (or any virtual DVD/CD-ROM application)
• A Windows 7 ISO (Such as from MSDN or TechNet)

Next, make sure that your flash drive is larger than 4GB and is connected to your system.

Our 8GB SanDisk Cruzer is ready!

Step 1:

Install and run the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Configure the tool to match the settings provided below, and press start to clean the drive.

Caution

This step will erase the contents of your flash drive. Make sure that all important material has been backed up prior to proceeding.

Match your program to these settings and press start.

Step 2:

Now that the flash drive has been formatted, it’s time to mount the Windows 7 ISO as a virtual DVD. Install and run MagicISO, then right click on your Windows 7 ISO and mount it to a drive as we have done in the diagram below. If you already have a virtual CD/DVD-ROM application such as Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools, we reckon you’re savvy to it and can make the mounting magic happen on your own.

Note

Windows Vista and Windows 7 users must right click and run the MagicISO installer as an administrator; the ability to mount ISOs from the Windows context menu (right clicking) will otherwise be unavailable.

Mounting the Windows 7 ISO to the Z: drive.

Windows Explorer confirms our ISO is on Z:.

Step 3:

Now it’s time to start making that flash drive bootable. Launch a command line and navigate to the directory in which you saved MBRWiz.exe (we saved ours to D:). Once there, invoke the MBRWiz /list command to display a list of drives configured in the system. Be sure to write down the disk number for your flash drive as we have in the figure below.

Note

Windows Vista or Windows 7 users must run the command prompt as an administrator for MBRWiz to function correctly.

MBRWiz has identified our flash drive as "Disk: 4."

Next, issue the MBRwiz /disk=# /active=1 command, where the pound sign represents the disk number of your flash drive.

Setting the flash drive to "/active=1" makes it bootable.

Lastly, copy the Windows 7 ISO’s bootable properties over to the flash drive with the Z:\boot\bootsect /nt60 X: command. In this case, Z: represents the drive letter for the virtual Windows 7 DVD and X: represents the drive letter for your flash drive. Be sure to replace these drive letters with the ones that are appropriate for your PC.

Caution

This command can only be used to copy the bootable bits from an ISO that matches the instruction set of the current Windows installation. Users running 32-bit copies of Windows can only execute this command if a 32-bit Windows 7 ISO is mounted; the same is true for 64-bit Windows 7 ISOs which require a 64-bit OS to be running.

If you’re running a 32-bit copy Windows and want to configure a Windows 7 x64 flash drive, repeat steps 1-3 with a 32-bit Windows 7 ISO, then mount a 64-bit ISO for step 4.

We've copied the bootable bits from Windows 7 on Z: to our flash drive on H:.

Step 4:

Open Windows Explorer and copy the contents of the mounted Windows 7 ISO to the flash drive.

Final thoughts

With the drive prepped and the files copied, it’s time to configure your BIOS to boot from USB and let ‘er rip! Installing Windows 7 from USB takes about 30 minutes depending on your system configuration. Remember to leave your flash drive connected until the installation completes, and you’ll be all set.