Home     Windows 7 Tweaks     Vista Tweaks     Privacy

How To Create Bootable Windows 7, Vista, or XP USB Flash/Pen Drive Quickly

Posted August 29, 2009 – 1:04 pm in: Windows 7 Tweaks
Advertisements

Users who have been struggling to follow our command prompt based install Windows 7 from USB flash drive and make bootable USB guides have a good reason to rejoice. Now you can create Windows 7, Vista, or the old XP bootable USB key with a few clicks. Yup, this is true. Read to know more!

win7 logo

Let’s begin the guide without wasting time. Just make sure that you have a pen drive with 4GB + capacity if you are making a bootable USB flash drive.

Requirements to create bootable Windows USB:

# Windows 7 or Vista ISO

# Pen drive with 4GB+ (2 GB is sufficient for XP)

# 15 Minutes of free time

Procedure:

1. Insert your USB flash/pen drive to your system and backup all the data from the USB as your USB drive will be formatted during the process.

2. Now download WinToFlash tool (free) from here.


3. Run the tool, and browse to your Windows 7, Vista, or XP DVD files (make sure that your USB drive letter is correct).

wintoflash

4. Click Create button to begin the bootable USB process. Wait for few minutes to see the bootable USB.

5. That’s all!

You might also like our how to make portable Windows 7 & install Windows 7 virtual box guides.

  Tags: , , ,

Related Posts

Useful Guides

Free Windows 7 PDF Books

38 Comments

  1. Zaim
    Posted September 4, 2009 at 8:01 pm | Permalink

    Thanks, quick and easy guide :)

  2. AkQ
    Posted September 9, 2009 at 11:54 pm | Permalink

    Testing .. Lets see how this works with eXperience’s release.

  3. AkQ
    Posted September 10, 2009 at 12:06 am | Permalink

    Didnt work. Baah..

  4. NAGARJUNA
    Posted September 12, 2009 at 6:38 pm | Permalink

    Its excellent. Yeah i got it.
    Hurray……….

  5. Samd
    Posted September 13, 2009 at 3:39 am | Permalink

    You should also specify that USB should be formatted to NTFS.

  6. Withered
    Posted September 21, 2009 at 12:55 pm | Permalink

    Thank you for time and so good post!

    It works!

    :D

  7. Shawo
    Posted September 26, 2009 at 9:44 am | Permalink

    It didn’t work. It just shows a white screen ‘UNetbottin’ Then a line ‘Default’ but nothing is happening.

  8. pawan
    Posted September 26, 2009 at 12:31 pm | Permalink

    dear all

    i done all ur above instructions (Unetbootin)
    i m unable to boot this method, i inserted the 2gb pen drive in the system and set the BIOS setting boot from usb hdd and it boot but not ahead to run, automatic boot run again and again please reply soon how can i run live winxp through pen drive

    Thanks and regards
    Pawan

  9. admin
    Posted September 26, 2009 at 9:50 pm | Permalink

    @Pawan

    First, you can’t use this guide to create a live XP. Second, please mentione the OS on which you are trying to create bootable USB. Finally, do you get any error while copying contents to USB?

  10. admin
    Posted September 26, 2009 at 9:54 pm | Permalink

    @Shawo

    On which OS you are running it?

  11. raus
    Posted September 27, 2009 at 11:53 am | Permalink

    I am having the same problem as Shawo. I am trying to install it on my netbook which currently has Windows XP.

  12. admin
    Posted September 27, 2009 at 7:56 pm | Permalink

    @All
    Since the tool was not working fine to most of the users, we have edited the post with a new tool. We hope this works fine. We apologies for the inconvenience.

  13. BreakeR
    Posted September 27, 2009 at 9:43 pm | Permalink

    “Incorrect source windows file”
    Im using windows xp 64bits and i keep getting this error.
    any solution?

  14. admin
    Posted September 27, 2009 at 9:53 pm | Permalink

    It seems that your installation files are corrupted.

  15. chairstacker
    Posted October 6, 2009 at 11:58 pm | Permalink

    great tool – easy to use & works well

  16. coolboora
    Posted October 17, 2009 at 12:40 pm | Permalink

    does not work

  17. Hawksie
    Posted October 25, 2009 at 8:51 am | Permalink

    How about installing the os onto the usb?
    how would i make my usb a local disk drive so that i can install win7 on it

  18. Yianni
    Posted October 27, 2009 at 11:32 am | Permalink

    Thanks a lot…. very easy to use. I used several other tutorials, and this was the only one that worked. Installed Windows 7 Ultimate on an Asus EEEPC 1005HA from 4GB flash drive.

    Thanks a lot…. very easy to use.

  19. Nix
    Posted October 28, 2009 at 3:48 am | Permalink

    Ok, tested last night and was able to create the USB from a DELL Windows XP MCE SP2 OEM DVD and it let me boot from the USB stick too and I went into the repair console – didn’t try an an actual windows install yet.

    I tried using the .iso file but couldn’t get that working but noticed in your screenshot that it mentions PE file source whereas I was trying to use it as Windows File Source – maybe I’ll try that again tonight, although I’m not sure a non PE iso can be used.

  20. TB
    Posted October 28, 2009 at 12:56 pm | Permalink

    Windows 7 Boots up from my usb drive but after i select install it says:

    G:\Sources\install.wim not found. G happens to be my DVD drive.

    Any clue why it trys to search my dvd drive and my floppy, i noticed my floppy light came on too.

    Does the pen drives title need to be labled correctly?
    my pen drive happens to be J drive

  21. Nix
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 10:47 am | Permalink

    I was also able to use the tool to create a bootable USB version of my GHOST 10 cd by selecting the create from PE option and then poiting to my GHOST 10 cd.

    Boots from the USB heaps quicker than windows.

    One thing I have noticed is that if I use the USB in windows and then ‘Safely Remove’ it, it becomes unbootable and I have to re-copy NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the CD to the USB.

    Although I’m not sure that’s what’s happening as I plug it in at work and ‘Safely Remove’ and then when I get it home sometimes it seems to have become corrupt.

    I know I initially played around with Lexar’s Bootit utility so maybe I’s left some setting on the USB incorrect, but I accidentally managed to wipe my hard drive using Bootit (must have pointed to the wrong drive) so I’ve been reluctant to use it again.

    Might need to use GDISK that comes with Ghost to wipe the USB totally clean and start from scratch.

  22. craig
    Posted November 11, 2009 at 7:46 am | Permalink

    ive followed the instructions, all seemed fine. changed bios to boot ‘removable device’ first….

    when i start the asus eee pc 4g it says ‘reboot and select proper boot device…’

    any ideas?

  23. jord
    Posted November 12, 2009 at 7:03 am | Permalink

    hey after this is done will it always boot windows 7?

  24. Nix
    Posted November 16, 2009 at 6:16 am | Permalink

    Ok sussed it.

    When I went to GDISK (in DOS) to wipe the drive it came up with a message saying “Fixed disk 3 has partition(s) that extend past the end of the disk”.

    So I wiped ther drive and then used FDISK and FORMAT and checked GDISK and there was no error.

    Went back into WINDOWS and ran WinToFlash again and then back to GDISK in DOS to check the status of the drive and sure enough the partition error was reported.

    So i wiped and reformatted again and went back to WinToFlash again but this time instead of usibg the default File System of FAT32 LBA, I changed it to FAT32 CHS.

    Once complete, went back to GDISK in DOS again and this time there was no error reported for the drive.

    The USB is a 4GB Lexar JD Firefly.

    Not sure what the difference is between CHS and LBA – something to do with drive size maybe – but I thought I’d post and update for others to be aware of this.

    I’ll keep an eye on my usb stick to see if it still gets corrupted or not.

  25. Neo
    Posted December 2, 2009 at 3:39 pm | Permalink

    Wonderful !!! never done anything so easy :-D

  26. brandon
    Posted December 3, 2009 at 11:03 pm | Permalink

    This is great! I was struggling with diskpart not working in XP, and downloaded MBRwiz, and that wasn’t working, and was following all sorts of guides and such and this does it all in one click, and works!

    Got my windows 7 files onto the thumb drive and made it bootable in under 5 minutes, now its installing on my netbook no problem! thanks a ton!

  27. ig
    Posted December 4, 2009 at 11:02 pm | Permalink

    List disk not showing my pen drive. Before I have used the same pen drive to install vista ultimate.

  28. Fareed Jaffar
    Posted December 7, 2009 at 2:21 am | Permalink

    Hi,
    One question. Is it possible to utilize (WinToFlash) tool to install WIndows 7 on an external USB Hard Drive and boot from it? I have Acer ASPIREONE netebook with only 8 GB capacity and thought that this might help me overcome this issue.

  29. crismic
    Posted December 28, 2009 at 2:59 pm | Permalink

    thank you awesome stuff..it works for me n my gf
    THAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    DRINK I BOTTLE BEER 4M ME
    ;-)

  30. ABHISHEK KUMAR JHA
    Posted January 18, 2010 at 1:54 pm | Permalink

    any body no make a folder of con in pc

  31. Josse
    Posted January 20, 2010 at 12:59 am | Permalink

    Just so it’s been said, you’ve got to extract the .iso-file to a folder, and specify that folder as the “Windows files path”.. Before I did, I got the error message “Incorrect source windows file”, like someone else did. I suggest using WinRAR to extract the .iso.

  32. karan
    Posted February 8, 2010 at 7:55 pm | Permalink

    thanxxxxxxxxxxx… awesome work and nice software…
    worked for me…my cd drive was not working..it really helped me a lot. thanks..

  33. Click
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 7:14 am | Permalink

    Thank you so much for your nice application.
    First I did as the tutorial above to USB key, Success and Next I did with my External Hard drive, The big problem is launch. I select one of my Partition. and the I click create. I wait a while and the the program Merge my External hard drive. All my one year work data lose, and all my Brother and sister Wedding lose, Every thing on my hard drive is lose. Do someone have any solution for this problem, Could I recover my file back?All very importance for me.Hope to see the solution.

  34. iki
    Posted February 11, 2010 at 10:55 pm | Permalink

    Great tool!!

    It works at the first try…

    Much better than Unebootin, definitely!!

    Many thanks

  35. deepak
    Posted February 13, 2010 at 1:26 am | Permalink

    thanks a lot…..
    very good software

  36. sdf@asfsad.com
    Posted February 16, 2010 at 4:59 am | Permalink

    You should specify that we need a windows OS in the requirements !!!

  37. Rakesh Solanki
    Posted March 7, 2010 at 9:14 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for this tip, I was great headache for me before read your post. but you solved my problem, thanks again.

  38. samir
    Posted March 10, 2010 at 2:09 pm | Permalink

    hi ,
    your services is to good , it is to usefull for everyone … thank for help .. budy

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*