How to Create Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows Vista,7,8 [EASY]

This tutorial will help you in creating a bootable USB drive of Windows Vista which you can use to install Vista in any system. It might become very useful when you don't have access to DVD drive.

1. First format your USB drive in NTFS file system. You can do it by attaching your USB drive to your system and then format it from My Computer window.

2. Now open Command Prompt window from Start menu. Right-click on Command Prompt entry in start menu and select "Run as administrator" option.

3. Now type diskpart in Command Prompt window and press Enter. It'll launch DiskPart program:

4. Now provide following command:

list volume

It'll show a list of all drives in your system. Look for your USB drive entry. As in the below screenshot, the USB drive is "G" which you can determine from its "Type" entry.

Now you have to select the USB drive volume by providing select volume no. command. Since in our case volume no. of USB drive is "Volume 4", the command would be:

select volume 4

Now we have to make this drive active. So provide active command:

active

Now exit from DiskPart using exit command.

5. Now we need to create Boot sector on USB drive. We'll use "bootsect.exe" utility for this task. You can find this utility in Windows Vista setup disk. It'll be present in "Boot" directory.

Now provide following command in Command Prompt:

bootsect /nt60 G:

Here G is drive letter of USB drive. Replace it with the correct drive letter if your system has some other letter for USB drive.

6. At last, copy all files/folders from Vista Setup DVD to your USB drive and you have done.

Now you can boot using your USB drive and can install Windows Vista in any system.

PS: You can also take a look at some free tools to automatically create bootable USB drives to install Windows using following link:

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How to create a bootable Windows XP SP1 CD (Nero)

How to create a bootable Windows XP SP1 CD (Nero): 
Step 1 

Create 3 folders - C:\WINXPSP1, C:\SP1106 and C:\XPBOOT

Step 2 

Copy the entire Windows XP CD into folder C:\WINXPSP1

Step 3 

You will have to download the SP1 Update, which is 133MB.
Rename the Service Pack file to XP-SP1.EXE
Extract the Service Pack from the Run Dialog using the command:
C:\XP-SP1.EXE -U -X:C:\SP1106

Step 4 

Open Start/Run... and type the command:
C:\SP1106\update\update.exe -s:C:\WINXPSP1

Click OK

Folder C:\WINXPSP1 contains: Windows XP SP1



How to Create a Windows XP SP1 CD Bootable 

Step 1 

Download xpboot.zip
Code:
Code:
http://thro.port5.com/xpboot.zip 

( no download manager !! )

Extract xpboot.zip file (xpboot.bin) in to the folder C:\XPBOOT

Step 2 

Start Nero - Burning Rom.
Select File > New... from the menu.
1.) Select CD-ROM (Boot)
2.) Select Image file from Source of boot image data
3.) Set Kind of emulation: to No Emulation
4.) Set Load segment of sectors (hex!): to 07C0
5.) Set Number of loaded sectors: to 4
6.) Press the Browse... button



Step 3 

Select All Files (*.*) from File of type:
Locate boot.bin in the folder C:\XPBOOT

Step 4 

Click ISO tab
Set File-/Directory length to ISO Level 1 (Max. of 11 = 8 + 3 chars)
Set Format to Mode 1
Set Character Set to ISO 9660
Check all Relax ISO Restrictions




Step 5

Click Label Tab
Select ISO9660 from the drop down box.
Enter the Volume Label as WB2PFRE_EN
Enter the System Identifier as WB2PFRE_EN
Enter the Volume Set as WB2PFRE_EN
Enter the Publisher as MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Enter the Data Preparer as MICROSOFT CORPORATION
Enter the Application as WB2PFRE_EN

* For Windows XP Professional OEM substitute WB2PFRE_EN with WXPOEM_EN
* For Windows XP Home OEM substitute WB2PFRE_EN with WXHOEM_EN

Step 6 

Click Burn tab
Check Write
Check Finalize CD (No further writing possible!)
Set Write Method to Disk-At-Once

Press New button

Step 7 

Locate the folder C:\WINXPSP1
Select everything in the folder and drag it to the ISO compilation panel.
Click the Write CD Dialog button.

Press Write

You're done.

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