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How To Make Windows 10 Bootable USB

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Having a bootable USB is very essential, especially if you want to finish installing Windows faster. Using a bootable USB to install an operating system (OS) not only makes the installation faster, but also saves a DVD!

Creating or using a USB drive to install Windows operating systems is very easy if you follow the steps mentioned below.

bootable usb drive

If you are planning to use a bootable USB to install Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 or Vista please refer our guides:

How to clean install Windows 10 from ISO

How to create bootable UEFI USB of Windows 10

Coming back to bootable USB guide, here we assume that you are using either Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, or Windows 10 to create your bootable USB.

Prepare Windows 10/8/7 bootable USB drive

Step 1: Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.

Step 2: Open elevated Command Prompt. To do this, type CMD in Start menu search field and hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Alternatively, navigate to Start > All programs >Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.

Step 3: When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

DISKPART and hit enter.

LIST DISK and hit enter.

Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image my USB drive disk no is Disk 1.

Step 4: In this step, you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self-explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)

ASSIGN

EXIT

Bootable USB

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

Step 5: Insert your Windows DVD in the optical drive and note down the drive letter of the optical drive and USB media. Here I use “D” as my optical (DVD) drive letter and “H” as my USB drive letter.

Step 6: Go back to command prompt and execute the following commands:

D: CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.

BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

(Where “H” is your USB drive letter)

USB Bootable

Step 7: Copy Windows DVD contents or ISO file contents to the USB drive now.

You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

Note that this bootable USB guide doesn’t work if you are trying to make a bootable USB on Windows XP computer.

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Comments

  1. Steve Si says

    FAT32 filesystem bootcode is only supported on hardware with 512 byte
    sector sizes.

    This message means that the drive you have specified uses 4k sectors. The BIOS is not compatible with 4k sector drives and so you cannot write BIOS boot code to it.
    Most drives have a 512e emulation mode which emulate 512-byte sectors, but some early hard disks and proprietary USB hard disks only use native 4k sectors.
    https://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/4k_hdd

  2. Syungie says

    Hello, can you help me? There is an instruction to type ‘bootsect.exe/nt60 x: (drive letter) of the usb drive but instead i wrote letter of the other drive. How could i turn that back to normal? Thank you.

  3. Mux1c says

    if formatting is a bit slow then use “FORMAT FS=NTFS quick” It should speed it up :)

  5. Cammo says

    This worked to make a USB Norton Ghost boot drive from a Win PE Ghost CD boot disk.

    Thanks you and come again.

  6. Raquel Scott says

    so far so good man.. My bootable flash drive is at about 33% of the way done with it’s formatting process. Then from the looks of it if everything else goes just like you said I just have one thing left to do and that’s to transfer the operating system from another source of media. However I’ve got my fingers crossed because I don’t actually have a windows CD. I have the operating system but It’s stored on another flashdrive. I think I get the concept of how you did it with the CD drive so theoretically it shouldn’t make any difference. I hope

  13. arslan says

    thank u for nice sharing… after this i will be able to boot up USB not now be going to com shop for booting USB.

  14. Monica says

    The steps are a bit complicated for me as a computer novice. I find the freeware ISO2Disc which allows me to create a bootable USB in an easier way.

  15. poonia says

    after step 6, do i go back to the same cmd prompt window i was using earlier? and when i type CD BOOT at step 6, it doesn’t bring me ‘BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60?. what’s wrong

  16. YHURI says

    youve done a good tutorial…i got it with a single process..guys just follow what has been post… youll not going to have any problem..just follow

  17. Jack says

    This tutorial is not very good.
    I get the following message when trying to run bootsect.exe /nt60 G:

    FAT32 filesystem bootcode is only supported on hardware with 512 byte
    sector sizes.

    No bootcode was successfully updated.

    Apparantly a fat32 filesystem must be 512mb or less in order to have a 512 byte cluster size. this article specific no partition size when partitioning so the default value will be used, which is not 512.

    I have been stuck on this f*****ng issue for 4 hours now and cannot solve it.

  18. Eone says

    Any idea how to stop the format process without make usb corrupted because i want to edit the command to fs=ntfs quick and it really take a long time to format with this large usb size…

  19. DAVID says

    People,a lot of you that are experiencing problems is because you don’t write exactly what you have to write in CMD. All the marks like “:” , “/” should be respected and everything will workout. I only noticed one problem, “BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H” is the way the site advices us to write,but that space between EXE and / is was not good for my command so i put it without space and it worked.

  20. b25 says

    problem
    this tool can only be run on systems booted using a PC/AT BIOS. This system was booted using EFI or some other firmware type.

    what should i do?

  21. Xoka says

    For the people having troubles with ISO-files.

    You should be able to mount the file with DaemonTools to create a virtual disk and copy the files from there.

    h ttp://www.disk-tools.com/download/daemon

    You can also open the ISO using Winrar if you only want to browse the files.

    Good luck!

  22. Majo says

    what if i dont have Windows on dvd and i want it on usb, do i have to burn it to dvd first then continue with these steps above?

  23. Ivy says

    after step 6, do i go back to the same cmd prompt window i was using earlier? and when i type CD BOOT at step 6, it doesn’t bring me ‘BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60’. what’s wrong?

  25. Shayne says

    I tried this and installed windows 7. It worked. thank you very much. But how to install Windows XP in this way(DVD content to USB and install). There is no CD BOOT folder in my disc.
    p.s.-it’s a DVD which has microsoft office 2003 package and windows XP sp2.

  26. Delited2meetU says

    OMG Thank you so very much this posting and many of the comments enabled my skill set to accomplish install windows 7 ISO file via xp to windows 7 new hard drive. some how I did it wow thanks all and this post most of all!!!

  28. yogi z best says

    da right, here writh take format fs=ntfs few secons, i don’t believe my pc formating and take few hours ha ha ha ha xD

  29. Prince says

    I have iso of win 7 in of of the drive in my computer not in dvd. so what should I write insted of D:CD BOOT ??

  30. david says

    Thank you, i’ve done it!
    One thing to mention, first i start cmd, on step 6 i got following problem:

    f:bootsect.exe /nt60 e: hit enter

    Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied

    So, I started cmd as administrator and repeat step by step,
    and it worked :).

    If someone experience same problem, just start cmd as administrator and repeat steps once again :).

  31. H says

    using the assign command is questionable. without any drive letter the selected device 1 will be assigned to the next drive letter. consequences there after

  32. Saft-Arla says

    A HUUUUUGE tip of speeding this procedure up by 5-15 times depending on the size of your flash memory, use the command “format fs=fat32 quick” instead of “format fs=fat32”. For me it took 14 seconds instead of 1 hour 32 minutes with a 32GB Freecom drive. And avoid using NTFS, this will deny permissions.

  33. mr shaikh says

    dear sir
    i completed step 6 then inserted cd to dvd drive
    please advice how i copy windows
    content to usb
    thanks

  34. didi says

    If you encounter the issue with “Access denied”, try using the line “format fs=fat32” instead. It worked for me.

  35. Carlton says

    I followed the steps as directed. However, I am at a loss for running step 6.

    The ISO that I am attempting to add to the USB drive was created from an EXE file using ImageBurn. The result was two files (ISO and MDS) in a folder on my desktop. How do I direct the CMD to access those files? I see no “BOOT SECT” or “NT60”

    Thanks. Please explain in layman terms. I am trying my best being a non-IT person.

    Thanks

  36. Saad says

    Kindly please guide what can i do to make my usb bootable for XP the above steps is same but the last from my point of view will be issue because in XP setup there is no boot folder and bootmgr so please resolve this issue

  37. himshikha says

    I gave following commands:

    C:\Windows\system32>J: cd boot (J is my DVD drive)

    J:\>cd boot

    J:\BOOT>bootsect.exe / nt60 K: (K is USB drive)

    I am getting below msg: (after hit enter)

    bootsect {/help:/nt60:/nt52} {SYS : ALL: :} [/force] [/mbr]

    Boot sector restoration tool

    Bootsect.exe updates the master boot code for hard disk partitions in order to switch between BOOTMGR and NTLDR. You

    can use this tool to restore the boot sector on your computer.

    Run “bootsect / help” for detailed usage instructions.

    J:\BOOT>

    Plz anyone can help………..???? Where I am doing mistakes..!! or any problem with my OS..

    Right now I am using Window 7 OS at my PC.
    And want to recover data of my laptop that has same OS.
    Waiting for reply..!!

  38. himshikha says

    “make sure it doesnt a read/write switch like floppies have”

    what does it (a read/write switch like floppies have) mean..??

  39. himshikha says

    e:bootsect.exe /nt60 f: hit enter

    Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied

    e:\boot>

    I have same problem.

    I use a external DVD WRITER for run a windows 7 dvd

    plz reply soon…i need it badly..!!

  42. admin says

    @ Thanks, Jolan. We will soon come up with a guide on installing Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 from the same USB.

  43. Jolan says

    You don’t need to have 1 usb for each os u want to make a bootable USB from,
    If u created 1 bootable usb, u can shrink the bootable partition.
    With the unallocated space u created u make a full new partition,
    and u overdo the steps above…
    Don’t forget to set the right partition on active to boot from…

    Hope this helps alot of people who are about to buy 5 USB’s to spare their money … :-)

  44. Dang says

    I am having with step 6. When I inserted windows cd, i type your instruction to type D:CD BOOT
    Now it says D:CD’ IS NOT RECOGNIZED AS AN INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL COMMAND, OPERABLE PROGRAM OR BATCH FILE.
    Help me please! I have no idea what to do.

  45. admin says

    @ M
    Good to know that it worked for you without any issues. The key is to run the Command Prompt as administrator.

  46. M says

    Awesome instructions and appreciated. Got my image ready for deployment via USB now and as a backup. Cheers!

  47. Lore says

    you saved my life, my note had win 7 starter (original) and then when i was updating my win, my SO was corrupted and i couldn’t reinstall it again. With this guide i could install win 7 home premium :P (sorry for my bad english >.<)

  48. Jau says

    Nice writeup. Would have liked to have a mail-link button of some sort, as I am at another computer than my own. Fixed it by using a web-based mailer, but still ;-)

  50. umar says

    E:\BOOT>bootsect.exe/nt60 h:
    Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied.

  51. okcn.aline says

    For beta lovers, how did you get Windows 7 Beta 6.1.7000 for so long? And why is in Copyright 2006?

  55. zohair ahmad says

    Thank you. Worked well. Note: that in BIOS it actually picks as a Hard Drive and not a removal drive

  57. CharlieM says

    I got till the point of Windows CD drive. I haveno installation disk for windows. Bougtthecomputer ready to use. What can I do now? Help pls.

  63. Sheikh says

    Thank you. Worked well. Note: that in BIOS it actually picks as a Hard Drive and not a removal drive :)

  67. Kartikeswar Senapati says

    F:\BOOT>BOOTSECT.EXE NT60 G:
    After the above the following message came:
    bootsect <sys:ALL::>[/force] [/mbr]
    Boot Sector restoration tool
    Sootsect.exe updates the master boot code for hard disk partitions in order to switch between BOOTMGR and NTLDR.You canuse this too to restore the boot sector on your computer.
    Run “bootsect /help” for detailed usage instructions.

  68. HANS says

    Successfully got a bootable IDE drive on Windows Server 2003 (XP).

    This is how to do it:

    Do all the steps until step 4 where you typed “ACTIVE”.
    Now format your drive in My Computer.
    Get back to cmd window and continue the steps.

    THIS INSTRUCTION WORKS FOR MAKING A BOOTABLE SPARE HARD DRIVE, not USB as they’re not recognized by the OS.

  73. Vincent says

    step 6 i seem to be having a problem… my D: drive is called D…. so when I type in D: CD BOOT it says incorrect function… what do i do?

  74. Mark H says

    I would like to thank you for this tutorial, this showed me quickly how I can make a bootable usb, I prefer the longer part then the shorther like some abovementioned people referred to.
    Thanks again

  75. dave tree says

    thanks… you didn’t tell what to do if after D:\>cd boot a error message “system cannot find path specified”. everytime i follow instructions from different forums it NEVER works. i don’t know why i haven’t learned my lesson and ignore these “flights of fancy ‘fixes it’ from wannabe’s

  77. george says

    What if I have a 2 disc set for recovering windows 7. How do I copy these files over. Would I need two USB’s?

  78. Wtf says

    “This tool can only be run on systems booted using PC/AT BIOS. This system was booted using EFI or some other firmware type.

    Wtf? I have Win7 Pro on an Asus K53U.

  79. AiXer says

    “Format process may take a few seconds”
    Definitely not. With a 32 gig drive, it takes almost an hour…

  82. Koppo says

    Plug the usb drive out and again in. Solved the issue for me as it was H: with only ~70MB left. After replug it worked.

  83. oldfashioned says

    couldn’t finish.
    C:\users\oldfashioned>E: CD BOOT (E is my disk)
    can’t do:
    E:\>CD BOOT
    E:\>BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 D: (D is my USB)
    does anyone have an idea:

  85. mahadevan says

    e:bootsect.exe /nt60 f: hit enter

    Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied

    e:\boot>
    im getting this type of error, what can i do to make a usb.

  90. admin says

    If you have forgotten your Windows password, check out this guide:
    intowindows.com/how-to-reset-windows-8-password-the-easy-way/

    Works on Windows 7 and Vista as well.

  93. danutz says

    I:\>CD BOOT
    The system cannot find the path specified.
    help me please.
    I: is the dvd letter.

  95. Nathan says

    follow up, I ran CMD as admin and it worked like a charm. should have read other posts first. (didn’t see the previous comments link at the top.)

  96. Nathan says

    I was following along on the guide and I formatted my USB 14 Gig, took an hour :-/ however when I got to the e:bootsect.exe /nt60 g: line it returns an error of

    Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied

    e:\boot>

    any thoughts as to why this happened? thank you

  97. benj says

    hi, i’m using win7, ang would like to make a bootable usb (XP version). can i still use the steps above? tnx

  99. ream says

    D:CD BOOT command does not work just like sparky five comment above says.

    In my case it says: “E:CD is not recognized as an internal or external command…”

  100. rinus says

    It only needs a space between the D: and CD BOOT, (D:(here)CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.)
    I know that, but for people who don’t know its confusing.

  103. Robbie says

    That is because with Acer you have to use their own oem version of windows that comes on their recovery partition, no out of shop or other branded windows disk will work unless you are doing a straight upgrade install from inside windows. You have to get their install from the recovery partition for it to work like this. (Probably could be worded better but I am quite tired after having to deal with the bs acer puts you through to do an install that doesn’t just wipe everything)

  104. sparky says

    What are the other bits after (EXIT) as other websites say you are finished after exit for making bootable disk,ps rest dont work after that it sayS command not reconised internal or extenalas batch command.
    i have taken a repair disc off my window 7 working lapton 64 bit and put onto my acer aspire one note book running windows 7 dont know what bit 64 or 32 then save from cd to my hard drive then send to my usb which i think is bootable, but only got to EXIT BIT on your guide! i get my acer and get to boot from usb it starts but then says kennals are missing!!!!
    ps acer dont work as reformated it from acer guide just black screen saying windows 32 missing. do you think acer could be 32 bit and im trying to install 64 bit or you think that the repair disc i made from my working laptop installs a bot on cd so when save it to usb its giving wrong info to windows on acer? it has 3 items on cd should boot be removed from cd before sending to usb. comput chap wants 60 quid to fix but can get new windows 8 from shop for less but could i install this on usb the bootable one i made,and if so will it overwrite windows 7 currupt version on acer! cheers for any help

  105. Luke Macenany says

    What if my BIOS does not give the option to boot from USB…can I somehow still do it… such as install that option into BIOS? I have Acer Travelmate 2300

  106. SUSHEEL says

    @qw : you dont need the cd drive to boot just downlod ultraiso or any other cdmounting software and mount the image to virtual drive and get theboot codes from that virtual drive problem solved :)

  107. vaibhav says

    I have creat a bootable usb and i was remamber to your steps,But i was read this massage and what can i do to creatbootable usb

  108. nasser sawesi says

    i tried all the steps to make usb bootable @ when comes to exection didnot work
    ps :all steps ok

  111. Gaurab says

    i can’t create my usb bootable and i can’t open it too. i tried to format but can’t succeed. please help to format it

  112. thomas says

    you don’t really need a cd, an iso file works just fine, just copy the files to extract the file to the usb and you’re done

  113. tila says

    How do i create a bootable usb. ?here things i want to do, my g73 jh asus has overheating in few minutes shutdown,help me find a solution’my gpu fan level start 60 ,how do i reduce the fan level? Thank you

  114. NAISYBEE says

    after I got through formatting and wrote assign then enter, another window popped up saying about “quick play” and the like. (the autoplay window that comes up when you put in media.)

    then i typed exit and enter and the whole window closed! yikes!

    so i went to the first window and typed the first command it told me.

    D:CD BOOT

    and it says “D:CD is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file”

    So now I have no idea what to do. Help?

  116. OSXP says

    @ Hendryk use “HDD Low Level Format Tool” (google it) and format your flash Disk,hopefully everything’s gonna be OK.

  117. roger_muppet says

    @Hendryk

    try executing the windows explorer with administrative rights – as explained for cmd in this tutorial.

  118. roger_muppet says

    this FAQ is simply the best ever. even if the tutorial itself doesn’t explain much in depth (it’s quite usable nonetheless), the comments answer like every single question that is even just possible in occuring!

    thanks all.

  119. Hendryk says

    Hi all…
    I followed these instruction until when it was formatting, my electricity went down…when the electricity on again, i tried to resume again by starting from the first step…
    Somehow, when formatting the usb flashdiak, it wrote “Virtual Disk Service error:
    A cocurrent second call is made on an object before the first is completed.”
    After that i can even format my drive, even when i tried to use right click and format (“You don’t have sufficient rights to perfom this operation”)
    What should i do? :(

    Help me please?

  120. Jonathan says

    your last step doesn’t seem to work as when you ask for the usb drive to become bootable using the command bootsect.exe/nt60
    the error pertains to EFI and the fact that your trick only works on PC/AT bootable bios..
    So, I was really disappointed to heard that..

  122. SAMUEL says

    to follow my previous post, i launched the cmd as administrator and tried again with the last few steps in the chain
    starting with ‘d: cd boot’ to the end
    the following error came up
    “could not open the volume root directory: the pramater was incorrect.”
    “no bootcode was successfully updated”

    what can i do

  123. SAMUEL says

    when i enter the “bootsect.exe /nt60 F:” command
    i get the folowing
    “target volumes will be updated with bootmgr compatible bootcode.”
    “could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access is denied.”

    what can i do?

  125. SeptimusRaven says

    If this works i didn’t bought a Athlon X4 740 with a super advanced MB that doesn’t have a IDE drive for my DvD writer, for nothing. Hope this works, becoz i forgot to buy also a drive with sata to install Win from cd, and right now, a stick is my last option. Again, hope it works, and thanks for the tutorial…

  126. Andreea says

    Hello!

    I don’t have a cd with Windows on it, but I have downloaded it on my PC. Can you tell me, please, what I have to modify?

  128. girish says

    A BIG THANK YOU!!!!

    Initially i had made my usb bootable for ubuntu , the size of my 8gb usb had reduced to 756mb , i tried formatting it the normal way but didn’t succeed!!
    Then i followed the first part of your instructions for formatting and now i have my 8gb of space back on usb
    thanks again

  132. rok says

    I the last commanc wrote like this, beacus dont work on this way , you published: D:CD BOOT
    CD BOOT
    BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

    my way: D: Boot
    CD Boot
    BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

  137. frustrated mom says

    Help! My daughter has a Sony Vaio personal computer. She tried to copy or download or I don’t know what, but now, when you turn on the computer, “Vaio” comes up then, in a DOS mode says “Windows is loading files”, then it takes me to Windows Boot Manager, and says, “Windows has encountered a problems communicating with a device connected to your computer” and so on. I can get into the BIOS, but that’s it. Tried to connect what she had connected but still doesn’t work. Do I need a boot disk, or is windows lost forever? I would appreciate any help!!

  140. RolanDecoy says

    The problem here is that some USB devices need to have the first byte set to 1 in order for Windows to recognize it as a (small) HD. Diskpart will not work unless that is done first and it amazes me how many so called IT specialists do not know this…

    Your guide explains how to format a USB device and mark it as a bootable device, but it does not actually make it bootable… please add that very critical step…

  143. Jose says

    @Steward if you’re running command prompt as administrator and don’t see the usb in the disk list, here’s a few things to check:

    open ‘my computer’ and see if the usb drive is listed there, it may not be reading at all

    right click on computer and select manage then go into disk management and check if you see it. if it’s not reading correctly you may just need to assign it as a drive in disk management

  145. Steward says

    Hi any one tell me please I can’t see my USB in “diskpart” list using “list disk” command and i can’t create my USB bootable please reply ……..

  146. Kiran says

    How to make multi bootable usb. with windows xp, vista and Windows 7 along with Hiren’s 9 or 15 version in one usb drive(16gb) or in usb external hard drive.

  147. amathyzt says

    Thank you very much. Simple and clear instructions, worked like a charm. Now I can run programs on start through booting off my usb and that is exactly what I had needed. Appreciate you taking the time and effort to share this info!!Great Job

  149. prescription drugs says

    Hello there! This article couldn’t be written much better! Going through this article reminds me of my previous roommate! He constantly kept preaching about this. I’ll send this information to him.
    Pretty sure he will have a great read. I appreciate
    you for sharing!

  151. alex says

    i type in E:CD BOOT

    it says E:CD is not recognized…

    i know E:/ is where the CD is, HELP!?

  154. Bill Curtis says

    I was reading through this thread wondering why anyone would say that this doesn’t work. Aside from the obvious ‘I ignored the step that said to launch command prompt as administrator’ which means don’t click on command prompt, but rather right-click on it and select run as administrator, I noticed that the spacing in some of the commands was not evident in the html. For those who know syntax,it is obvious. For those unfamiliar with syntax, you get comments like “BOOTSECT.EXE’ is not recognized as an external or internal command, operable program or batch file.”

    “D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.” should just say:

    D:
    CD BOOT
    BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H:

    XCOPY D:\*.* /S /E /F F:\ (Where D: is your DVD drive, and F: is your USB Drive) And hit Enter.

  158. Q4Rspwn says

    to post #306: you have to type the letter for your dvd drive, for example D:, and run the following command:
    D:\boot\bootsect.exe
    and then bootsect.exe /nt60 G: (replace G: with the drive letter of your flash drive)
    Good luck!

  159. Q says

    “Formatting may take a few seconds.”
    It took 45 minutes with my Freecom 32gig 2.0 flash drive.

  160. joshua says

    Thanks. A quick and easy guide. Best on the web and first on google search for “create bootable usb”
    :D:D:D:D:D:DD:::D:DD:D

  163. Malcolm says

    Many thanks, tried for two weeks to load windows on a HP pavilion dv6710ea laptop with a new hard drive, this way was the only way i could do it many thanks again.

  165. Prime Minister Lungs says

    Nice one…im sure da people in my country will find this useful :D

  167. Vandan Javiya says

    Hi…Friends…!!!

    I am not able to do step no.6 for bootable pen drive for windows xp sp3..Plaese help me…

  172. Mark says

    DO NOT INSTALL WINTOFLASH!!!!!
    that piece of shit has more adware in it than you can shake a stick at..

    do yourself a favor, read a bit and make this work on your own

  173. Frazer says

    Okay so the amount of comments on this is mad and I feel a little silly, but whenever I type in ‘BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 F:’ I get the following:

    BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 F:
    ‘BOOTSECT.EXE’ is not recognized as an external or internal command, operable program or batch file.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated, just trying to get my new system up and running, having some difficulties.

  174. Dennis says

    Thank you poster!

    This has saved me 1 year ago, and just did again.

    May you have a lot of fun on this saturday night.

    Cheers,

    Dennis

  176. Apurva gupta says

    i did it
    but my pendrive does not work on system startup even i make it 1st boot device
    it works after os start

  181. hansjulius says

    can you pls help me format my usb i do like what you did above but i cannot access my disk 1 only disk 0. when i format it or even going to the drive x: the message “the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. can you pls. help me…..pls….

  182. Nishant says

    thank for your reply sir but i have formatted it too and now when i am using it it is saying to format and when i format it it says unable to format.

    i am using windows 7 so in my computer the drives like c,d ,e in bottom details come but in this pen drive no detail is coming and i am unable to open
    plzz help me cause i have done it on my 8 gb pendrive and i want it back to normal

    plzz sir plzzz help me

  183. admin says

    @Nihsant
    If you have just entered diskpart command then you haven’t formatted your USB drive. So, simply type exit command and use your USB drive.

  184. Nishant says

    I have just followed till 1 step in which we have to do disk part i have completed that thing after that i exit it because i was not knowing that for doing we also need a cd so now what should i do to bring back to a data storage device please tell me

  186. Farook says

    hELLO THANKS FOR YOUR PRECIOUS HELP… THANK YOU VERY MUCH… THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH…

  187. ARNAS says

    Everyting works!!!! i was strugeling for a half of day and thought is complete rubish… But:
    1. it does not work on XP!!!
    2. WERY IMPORTANT!!!!Run com.prompt only as administrator!!! if you just open com. prompt youll get mistakes as well.
    Good luck for all.
    Many thanks for help!!!

  188. ffff says

    I’m stuck… when I type “list disk” it shows only my hard drive partition, not the usb partition.

  190. Ramya says

    my usb not listed in diskpart/list disk.
    it detect my hard drive. not shown my 8gb usb.
    Please give solution

  191. MIKE says

    wow…
    this really worked
    ive tried so many tutorials to make a bootable usb and they fail sohard thanks alot for the tutorial.

    ps sorry for the spelling errors XD

  192. mohan says

    It works great…just correct that last step require cmd to be opened as “Run as administrator”….otherwise it works prefectly. Thanks a ton.

  193. Trisdawg says

    Just to clarify for anyone who might stumble on this guide from google. Other guides I have followed tell you to format the drive as FAT32. The problem with this is that file-system can only support files upto 4GB. If you have a large USB drive & plan on storing additional ISO files on there then it’s a must to format using the NTFS file-system.

  195. tango says

    when i give the following command i get the following message: bootsect.exe /nt60 g:(where g is my pendrive letter)
    Target manager will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible code.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: Access is denied.

  197. valcriss says

    hello sir.
    my usb is detected and seen on my computer, but when i enter the list disk in the command prompt, there’s no other disk on the list only the hd where my os is installed, and i also run the cmd as admin but still it only shows the disk 0

  198. Tech says

    Format seems to be taking an absolute age sat here for around 20 minutes and only on 5 percent !

  199. Szili says

    Hy!
    The usb is in the computer when a Start the windows every time? Or when a finished the instalation the windows start without the usb? Sorry my bad english
    Thanks

  204. Quatalojh says

    I purchased a SanDisk 16GB USB Flash and am attemping to load WinXP to it and make it a bootable WinXP environment. I am using a Win7, and have opened a command prompt. After remembering a few old dos commands such as (c: D: W: cd\ cd cd.. format) and so on.. I used the command prompt to format my USB W: to NTFS, using, FORMAT W: /FS:NTFS , which took about 3 hrs on the USB drive, and then I used Win7 Manager to copy the XinXP CD to my USB, All seem to work up to this point, so I restarted the computer as to boot from XPCD install disk which worked and proceeded to to Fresh install WinXP to my USB preserbing the new NTFS that I had just created. Setup seemed to wok fine allowing Setup to copy and extrct the files it needed, and then the system rebooted to allow the USB to load and continue to finish XP setup, however, after restart, the computer successfully sees the USB drive and attempts to boot XP setup but fails and hangs in a bluescreen of death. I believe I am on the right track, but now am upset and confused. AM I perhaps missing Bootsect.exe or NTLDR and if so how do I get them to my USB? And to make things worst, if I remove the USB drive and try to reboot system without USB, win7 is now saying that it is corrupt and will not load. HELP?

  205. admin says

    @Antzman
    It seems you are attempting to execute the command on a non-elevated prompt. Launch the Command Prompt with admin rights and then try executing the command.

  207. Nirmal says

    never mind about my previous comment, figured it out, but ran into another problem, on booting and the installation page(collecting Information page really) where you select partitions, I deleted all and created one big partition and on clicking next it says the setup is unable to read/install on this partition or something like that…help fellas?

  209. Nirmal says

    Can anyone get it to work in the following conditions, my OS on my desktop which Im using to create a bootable usb is a Win7 Ultimate 32bit, the disk I have with me is a 64bit version…HELP!!!! ASAP

  210. ankitdixit says

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (H being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.
    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.

  212. fahad says

    May God bless you… One of the chronic problem of notebooks is solved by you… Thanks a lot dude!

  213. Armand says

    there is one nasty mistake in guide wich made me a lot trbl.

    D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

    correct is D: CD BOOT
    (space after D:)

  215. Suman kumar singh says

    I’ve tried your trick yet. But i’ll going to try.its sound good. Also tell me that is again pendrive previous way. and also tell me the step for again storing data in my pendrive. Plz send ur suggestion on my mail.

  216. Ahaan says

    Hey I was just looking around in Bios and found that if you continue in burn in mode in bios,YOU CAN EXTEND YOUR USB FROM ANY SIZE TO 8GB OR 16GB.It also works on Processor-means that you can even increase your processor from 2.80GHz to 12GHz.Hope will help anyone!!!

  219. Alex says

    Many thanks for this tutorial. It works perfectly. I also tried it using a USB HDD with SBS2008/11. Again perfect results. Takes a bit of time to format the drive so the smaller the drive the better. Sorry about some of the comments. The IT industry seems to spawn ungrateful tossers. Keep up the good work.

  221. UK_Bob says

    How can I make this a bootable USB if I don’t have a WIN7 DVD? My OS was on the p.c but no DVD was supplied.

  224. denson says

    @arefiqrc

    Better yet, get an .iso from the Windows version you like and mount it with a tool like Daemon-Tools or Gizmo

  225. Atta says

    Hi.

    My laptop did not have a CD/DVD drive, so I was required to install Win 7 from a USB. I bought I new HD as well.

    I followed the steps in the tutorial above and I successfully managed to install Win 7 on my new Hard Drive.

    I thank you for this tutorial.

    Atta

  228. cracker5901 says

    It is more reliable for typical users not to use this guide, it is much simpler with right clicks.also faster, as the format process from the command line is very slow.

  229. piey says

    i’m trying xp bootsect.exe /nt52 to usb… when booting it’s say ntldr missing…. i have ntldr in /i386,,,, guide me how

  231. PRABAL says

    Hi there,

    I have Toshiba XP satellite. Vista capability.
    The DVD/CD rom is not working. So I wanted to try WinToFlash to install from USB. However, on the DOS, there is not option for USB booting. I could see only CD, LAN, HDD, FFD.

    Please help.
    Desperately need to install XP.

    Thanks.

  232. ajay says

    mount any image file(window 7,vista only) to powerIso or on other software and plug your usb drive then follow these steps…..

    start>run>cmd

    in the cmd window…..

    go to path of the mounted image drive(means source of the file)
    LIKE-> k:

    enter in the mounted drive and type…..

    boot\bootsect /nt60 [destination or usb drive name with colon]

    it will show the message that your drive is selected as boot mgr and access denied kind of error, ignore these things…..

    Now, copy all the files of the mounted drive(window file) to the usb drive. your usb is ready to install window.

  233. nihar ranjan jena says

    In windows xp operating system i’ve tried this open CMD then write diskpart-list disk but …i’ve got only the message
    DISKPART> list disk
    Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn gpt
    ——— ——- ——- —— —- —-
    Disk 0 Online 149 GB 0 B

    the CMD can’t find my USB flash drive ..
    please help

    Disk 1 in list disk command

  234. nihar ranjan jena says

    In windows xp operating system by using list disk command in diskpart its only show disk 0 whis is mu H.D.D but not show pendrine Disk 1 but its show in windows 7 Disk 1 in list disk command

  236. Shaik Khasim Saida says

    Hello sir. I have TOSHIBA Satellite A135-S4527, Home Vista laptop. But I am instal Windows xp2 with booting usb stik. Please help me. how it make.

  238. ALOK says

    i would to know that if i forget my laptop password. then how i open my p.c. again. i am currently using window-7 .

  239. Shambhu Shikaree says

    I was able t create bootable USB as per given TUT. How can we format this USB back to normal once finished work with it. I tried formating but has not worked. Please let know if any one knows…

  240. segni says

    how can i break the password of my mobile by using computer
    and please show me the way to do so

  241. gushan says

    please guide me that how to make usb bootable disk with the help of windows 7 copy file.It is urgent

  243. SmaRkieS says

    for those having problem with this guide, you can use the WinToFlash program, which is more dumb friendly UI.

  244. The Dude says

    Thanks worked absolutely spot on. I used yours and sobaixu updates and well pleased. Thanks again.

  245. PANCHAL says

    hi gys
    i found that the in intalling windows xp thas not showing yout pendrive in list disk but u type “list volmume” then y show your pendrive & after u select that but u cant active it !!!

    how can i create a bootable pendrive without any third party software ?
    HELP !! HELP !!HELP !!

  248. RonaldEron says

    what about windows 8 beta? I had this software and i want to install it on my netbook… and i want to use my usb to install it. Is this tutorial can also work to windows 8?

  251. Bilal says

    Guys For all those who are facing “Access Denied” problem; they must Run CMD as an “Administrator” by right clicking and then clicking it as and “administrator” your problem will be solved after following the Steps mentioned in the tutorial.
    Simple solution and awesome tutorial.
    Thank u

  252. Booyah says

    Just as an FYI… when installing Windows 7 from a USB3 Port / Controller such as Renesas like on my XPS 15 L502X and using this method with Windows 7, the Windows installer boots fine but cannot find the USB Stick’s after it boots (complains it needs a driver before install).

    If using a USB2 Stick – get the USB3 drivers (get them from Dell XPS 15 L502X Drivers Site, extract them), put the “Files” folder on a CD or DVD, and select the “x64” or “x86” folder when searching for a driver to install. You need to uncheck “Hide Drivers Not Compatible with my machine” so that you can see the USB2 Host Controller (if using USB2 storage stick). Select USB2 Driver, and the install will continue (it will find the USB Stick again).

    Best of luck!

  254. Rene says

    how i can do same thing without cd/dvd from my computer OS ? i dont have at the moment my windows cd/dvd and need make bootable usb stick, need help. can i do it without cd/dvd from my laptop OS ?

  257. pfondevilla says

    what do i do if the windows recovery that i want to put in to the usb is in 2 disks? do i put in to the same usb?

  260. Imran says

    guys my DVD player is not working and i want to copy file from F drive to USB after make it a bootable… which command should i hit….

  261. Darky says

    I did exactly as said, but i always get “Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and press enter” error whenever its plugged in. I have Ubuntu installed, it shouldn’t be causing any errors.

  262. BBB says

    CMD.exe doesn’t find my USB device, although Explorer sees it, there are no important files on in anymore, and i can easyly write and read to this device.
    What to do? I REALLY need a bootable USB device for my Acer netbook!

  263. Muhammad uzammil says

    Dear All,

    Recently I tried the above mentioned method to make USB bootable and really it worked. Before this I tried different method but unable to do. I installed W7 on my desktop pc and in last Thanks for the useful info.

    Regards,

    Muhammad Muzammil

  264. sopha.pheng says

    hi all I want to ask all of you 1 question who have strategy to make bootble usb with window xp3 who can make please help me and send mail to me thank

  266. santu halder says

    sir,is this same procedure to make windows xp?pls sir reply me as early as possible.

  268. vin says

    its just great man.
    i liked ur tutorial please keep doin such efforts
    if u hav nay forum please let me know
    daily i hav new query regardin computer

    thanks a lot

  269. bhawani says

    hey frndss there r trick to make bootable usb for 7 & vista
    run cmd as administrator then chanhe the path to boot folder for bootsect command
    type this
    bootsect /nt60 destination drive latter /force
    eg:= bootsect /nt60 k: /force

  270. naveen says

    Hi, I did everything as per the process, and when i finished everything , my USB drive has converted into a read only!

    there is no switch, and I am using windows 7.

  272. Bo says

    @Vidura , to solve the “could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access is denied” problem run cmd as administrator

  273. Shree says

    TO “sonu
    Posted April 12, 2011 at 2:56 pm | Permalink

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (H being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.

    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.
    PLZ GIVE ME SOLUTION IF ANYBODY HAVE ONE pls help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”
    I had the same problem. I am running windows 7. RIght clik CMD and click “run as administrator” and rerun the bootsect commands.

  275. Ahmed Ali says

    in which interface is it easier to create abootable flash disk,using command line interface or using third party programs?
    Explain briefly.

  277. vishal kumar says

    this is great to make bootable pan drive…. install win to flash from cnet download and then run the programme…. at last the result you want

  279. migs says

    i have error in D:\CD BOOT “access denied” i’m creating bootable windows Xp pro SP3 please help!

  280. admin says

    @S.A.M

    You can’t create a bootable USB by just copying the DVD files to USB.

  281. S.A.M. says

    Won’t copying all the files from the windows dvd just make it a usb with windows 7 installation on it?

  282. Alecs says

    It really works ! Installed Win XP, 7 with no problems. Thank a lot !
    Badly it won’t work if you are on Windows XP. Do you know any workaround ?

  283. Fardeen says

    Bootable USB flash drive for Windows Vista and Windows 7 isn’t all that tricky, but it’s always nice to find an app that simplifies things. Not only does WinToFlash make the process about as easy as it can get, but it can also create Windows XP, Server 2003, and Server 2008 installers.
    Download WinToFlash & Carry on.

  285. Dygi says

    Great tutorial. I’ve spent whole day to find this simple line, that creates correct MBR bootable block. Thanks a lot!

  286. blatz says

    tnx…nice tutorial
    just do what’s in the instruction
    it worked perfectly for me

  287. Rohit says

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 I:
    (I being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt
    TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.

    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.

    PLZ GIVE ME SOLUTION IF ANYBODY HAVE ONE

  288. mahdi says

    i dont have lectur dvd il like install win xp i have win xp iso haw to insttal win xp iso for my pc

  291. carol says

    Swordfish, you call Sunny a retard, but aren’t you are the retard who couldn’t make a bootable USB?

    so STFU

  293. RyanXTREME says

    Dear zvezddy,
    I had that same thing happen to me. I had to use my FOOT to push it into the USB slot on my computer… CMD PROMT RECOGNIZES ANY USB FLSH DRIVE!

  299. zvezddy says

    i’ve tried this open CMD then write diskpart-list disk but …i’ve got only the message
    DISKPART> list disk
    Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn gpt
    ——— ——- ——- —— —- —-
    Disk 0 Online 149 GB 0 B

    the CMD can’t find my USB flash drive .. :(
    please help

  300. Paul says

    Does anyone know how to fix my problem with a HP notepad (windows XP), that has a corrupt config.sys.

    When powering up the system fails with a config.sys read error, as the notepad does not have a floppy drive, I assume the only thing I can do to correct the corrupt or missing file is to use the USB port, but not sure how to do this.

  301. sonu says

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (H being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.

    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.
    PLZ GIVE ME SOLUTION IF ANYBODY HAVE ONE pls help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

  303. Chachki says

    WinToFlash is actually a piece of shit program. I tried using it and it ran through the wizard and did absolutely nothing other than attempting to load ads the entire time. Garbage program.

  305. Usman says

    thank you dear it’ realey works very well

    i have one more question can i run ghost from my USB drive

    and can i install multi os from one usb..

    thank’s again

  306. Frosty says

    Quickest and easiest way I’ve found is to download/install UltraISO. Open the ISO(ISO being an image of the disc) and choose write to disc option. Choose you’re USB stick and you good to go. Nothing better then WIN7 install from USB.

  308. JS says

    i have win 7 i had done all commands step by step in last BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 G: after this command i received message

    ‘BOOTSECT.EXE’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable programe or batch file.

    Plz give me solution…….

  309. E says

    Thank you so much! I tried forever to find detailed instructions like these! Worked flawlessly for my little netbook. THANK YOU!

  310. Gurveen says

    Hi All,

    it is working fine just you need to right click on CMD of start button and start DOS as Administrator.

    Rest follow steps initially mentioned in this thread nothing else is required.

  311. gaurav says

    my dvd drive is not working i have the windows 7 file in my harddisk and in my pen drive how to proceed after step 5.
    plzzz help.
    thanks

  312. Hash_master says

    alright cool I got it started I used disk utility and erased. So there probably a program that does that for windows, shouldn’t DISKPART do that?? any ways problem solved

  314. Hash_master says

    I can’t be the only 1 with this error

    ###so when I enter###
    FORMAT FS=NTFS

    ###I get this###
    Virtual Disk Service error:
    A concurrent second call is made on an object before the first is completed.

  315. Manish says

    I want to know when i type cmd cd boot then why displaying system can not define the specified path. While everything is ok drive letter. I have use windows7 ultimate os to make bootable usb.plz send step by step cmd which i could make succeed usb.
    Regards
    manish
    pgdca from polytechnic

  317. Kaja says

    god i hate my self.
    i am a noob at this but since i have nobody to help me i have to try to figur it out my self.
    turns out i did this guide on my stock hdd instead of the usb. so now i lost 100+ gb files.
    Is there no way to get it back?

  318. robin says

    hello i have a little problem in my pc when im formatting my computer in the stage of copying files it appears retry in a particular files like .ndll format or something i used different installer or CD’s i also try genuine windows xp and bootable USB but still it cannot copy files…thank you

  321. ziggy says

    Can any one help me to creat a start up disc on cd or dvd…please note that i want it for windows xp

  322. kamran says

    during said process to make usb bootable
    diskpart >clean was not successfull, after this usb can’t be formated and showing 0 kb properties.
    help me to save my usb

  323. Bidyut Roy says

    THE SYSTEM CANNOT FIND THE PATH SPECIFIED.. this sentence shows every time i type in “CD BOOT”, my cd-drive is E: so i’ve done it correctly.. what am i gonna do?
    E:\>CD BOOT
    THE SYSTEM CANNOT FIND THE PATH SPECIFIED.
    exactly like this.

  324. ASAD YAHYA says

    this is better way to tell peoples about usb anad i hope u understand the better way of doing this Ok for all the people that are following this tutorial, but still get an “access is denied” error…..MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT CLOSE OUT OF COMMAND PROMPT!!!!!! If you do then you lose your rights to write to that drive. You lose admin privileges. So when you hit “exit” and it says leaving diskpart, don’t close CMD. Then go onto the next step

  326. mohdnizam1971 says

    i like to make usb live mode for windows like ubuntu or any os. is it real….help me plz..

  327. Nabs says

    How do I perform a bootable flash disk with multiple Operating system on it. Where I would have the chance to choose which Os I want to install a time?

  328. Leg3nd says

    Ok for all the people that are following this tutorial, but still get an “access is denied” error…..MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT CLOSE OUT OF COMMAND PROMPT!!!!!! If you do then you lose your rights to write to that drive. You lose admin privileges. So when you hit “exit” and it says leaving diskpart, don’t close CMD. Then go onto the next step.

    I don’t know how many times I tried this before I figured out that by me closing the command prompt screen I was losing my privileges to write to that disk (usb)

    Hope this helps.

  330. Arjun says

    First of all Thx for this tutorial….
    btw who got error on last step please follow this step..

    1. Insert your USB stick into USB port (MUST be 4GB or higher).

    (Note: Backup the data on your USB drive as we are going to format it.)

    2. Open the Command Prompt: (follow steps listed below to do this)

    Go to Start Menu >

    All programs >

    Accessories >

    Right click on ‘Command Prompt’

    Select ‘Run as Administrator’

    3. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

    DISKPART (hit enter)

    LIST DISK (hit enter)

    (Note: Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk numbers of all drives connected to your PC)

    4. In this step, enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter:

    SELECT DISK 1 (Replace “DISK 1? with your USB drive’s disk number, For example: If your usb is 4GB,
    and Disk 2 shows 4000mb disk size, type SELECT DISK 2, as that is your usb drive)
    CLEAN

    CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

    SELECT PARTITION 1

    ACTIVE

    FORMAT FS=FAT32 (Format process may take a few minutes, depending on the size of the USB drive)

    ASSIGN

    EXIT

    (Note: Don’t close the command prompt as we need it for the next step. Just minimize it)

    5. Insert your Windows DVD in the DVD drive.
    Note the drive letter of the DVD Drive and USB Drive.
    (Here I use “D” as my DVD drive letter and “F” as my USB drive letter)

    NOTE: Drive letters can be assigned or changed. In the start menu right click “Computer”,
    select “Manage”. A window will open. Select Disk Managment (Near the bottom of the list
    on the left side panel), Right click a drive to assign, change or remove the drive letter).

    6. Go back to command prompt window and execute the following commands:

    D: CD BOOT (Where D: is your DVD drive letter) And hit Enter.

    XCOPY D:\*.* /S/E/F F:\ (Where D: is your DVD drive, and F: is your USB Drive) And hit Enter.

    8. Wait for DVD contents to copy to USB.

    You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer
    that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

  331. barbituate says

    Worked like a champ. Ran into a couple hurdles, but finally got it working on Windows 7. Had to start the command prompt in Administrator Mode. And after going through the “diskpart”, my USB drive letter had changed from G: to H:, so I was of course getting an error with bootsect.exe when using the wrong drive letter.

    All good now. Thanks for the post!

  334. renzcarl says

    THE SYSTEM CANNOT FIND THE PATH SPECIFIED.. this sentence shows every time i type in “CD BOOT”, my cd-drive is E: so i’ve done it correctly.. what am i gonna do?
    E:\>CD BOOT
    THE SYSTEM CANNOT FIND THE PATH SPECIFIED.
    exactly like this..

  335. Alex says

    Hi , I’m Alejandro and I’m mexican. I don’t speak very well english but it was very easy to follow your instructions. I’m very grateful becouse this works perfectly . thanks alot.

    Sorry if I’m wrong in my writing
    thanks again

  341. amandeep says

    Naveen,,, i have same error like u,,, actually matter is that,, Xp has no boot folder,,, if u try boot command on window 7, it will work,,,, so, xp has different folder of boot files, i dont know proper name, but may 1386.

  344. rukhsad says

    when i hit the list disk there is no display usb number
    then how can i format and partition and make bootble plz guide me

  345. shivram says

    when i try to boot from the usb drive, windows 7 setup says unable to create/locate partition.

    PS- lenovo thinkpad U460 (netbook)

  346. jat says

    the steps do work when followed but when booting from the usb, the default language is not english – it’s some funky character…,

    kalasha

  349. Rocket says

    thustha, I had the same issue. I would show in XP, but not in Diskpart. I plugged it into my Windows 7 workstation and it then showed in Diskpart.

  351. naveen says

    please tell me how to make non bootable USB from bootable.
    i created bootable usb and formatted it but now at the time of booting up my laptop if i have inserted that usb then it shows bootMGR missing error.
    so how to resolve this problem.

  354. Ionut says

    When i write in cmd “CD: BOOT” it says: “The system cannot find the patch specified”. Help please.I`m using Vista.

  358. Martin says

    Hello. Everything works fine until bootsect.exe /nt60 f:. It just gives me the message “not recognizable”.

    What can I do?

  360. Carl says

    *** You must have Vista or Win 7 on your computer for the above method to work ****

    *** It will NOT work if you are trying to do this from a computer with XP ***

    Because the “Diskpart” command in XP does NOT WORK with USB Flash Drives.

    Also, you can NOT put XP on a USB flash drive using this method (XP is NOT designed to install from a USB drive.)

  361. polo89 says

    so try doing everything step but when i put in the comman cd boot system cannot find specified path. can any one please help me?

  362. polo89 says

    so try doing everything step by step but when i put in the comman ( cd boot ) it says system cannot find path specified . can any one please help me ?

  363. l0stb3ta says

    @Arpita:

    The CD command changes directory.

    First, are you sure that your DVD drive is D: ? Verify the drive letter by going into My Computer. The drive letters for all attached drives should be listed, alongside what they are. I.E., “DVD Drive D:”.

    As far as I know, the only thing that would cause a “Cannot find the file specified” error is if D: is not actually the directory for your DVD drive, or if the DVD isn’t in the drive. I think it may also happen if the DVD is unreadable, but I think that gives you another error.

    @karim:
    It might be *possible*, but this tutorial is specifically for Windows Vista and Windows 7. You might have to ask Google about that one…although, I’m not sure if any hardware that can only run Windows 2000 is able to boot from USB. I could be wrong, though.

  366. Arpita says

    WHEN I TYPE CD BOOT..IT SAYS CANNOT FIND THE FILE SPECIFIED.
    SO THE LAST SUCCESSFUL STEP I GOT THRU WAS “D: BOOT CD”
    BUT AFTER THIS..IT CANNOT IDENTIFY THE PATH.. CAN ANY1 HELP ME WID DIS..DAT WILL BE GR8 THANKS..

  368. Arpita says

    my usb is 3.78 GB
    when I am typing the command CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY..IT SAYS Insufficient free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset.
    wot do i do?

  370. Azad says

    Hi, I think you can’t use ‘assign’ command without selecting volume. What i did before assigning is hitting the following commands-
    LIST VOLUME
    SELECT VOLUME # (volume number of usb drive)
    ASSIGN

  373. SHAILENDRA KUMAR says

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (H being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.

    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.
    PLZ GIVE ME SOLUTION IF ANYBODY HAVE ONE>>>>>>>>>

  374. Rolf says

    Worked great on my Acer AOA150. Tinkering with it now it seems o work quite well. Thanks for the great instructions. I felt like a true computer guy! THX Again!

  375. Azeem says

    Its a very nice description by the way and works good. though i have a suggestion…i.e. ASSIGN AND EXIT where exit looks like that if we write EXIT it will go out of the COMMAND PROMPT. but it actually goes out of the PARTITION PROCESS. so make it clear to other people that it will just go out of the partition process. Not all of the people think much upon this thing..Thanks…best of luck

  379. Peter says

    THE GUIDE “”DO NOT WORK FOR XP””

    Your stupid fuckhead, did you not know, that people using XP, “”CANNOT”” se there USB drive in disk part / Disk list.

    Aaaaand, since 99,99% of 100, try make such USB bootble,
    bcs. they will install win 7, on a XP system, it means
    your guide do not work at all.. Christ.

  382. vinod says

    Is it possible to format windows 7 with windows XP bootable CD bcz on my pc I installed windows 7 on xp it is not istalled after 37% it got blocked. whenever I want to format using xp it said hard disk not recognizable…

  383. dvhirst says

    Thanks to Arun for his comment about Win XP version! It works as suggested, with the bootsect commeand confirming that ntldr compatible bootcode was written to the drive.

  386. Bartlomiej Puls says

    “could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access is denied”…

    Run cmd as Administrator – it WILL work.

  387. Zzz says

    Guys! What if i dont have DVD of XP but XP image at my Hard Disk. In that situation, how am I gonna select that specific image from hard drive volume.

    I tried by making a virtual cd drive but CMD doesn’t recognize it and BOOTSECT.EXE doesn’t appear.

    Note: Transitioning from Vista to XP.
    Please, guide if u can.

  388. NPP says

    You’re the BEST, buddy! This tutorial was just what i needed cos my DVD Drive’s been acting funny!
    The jerks who say “this is too complicated” or “this is just not needed” need to broaden their myopic contemplation!
    Thanks once again, pal!
    :)

  389. Cro Hacker says

    to all of them that whant to make the USB a USB like it whas before , just do on the repeate this part ” CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

    SELECT PARTITION 1

    ACTIVE

    and do this FORMAT FS=FAt32
    the usb returns to be a removable disc

  391. yasir says

    same prob here

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (H being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.

    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.

    anybody with a solution please?

  393. Luis says

    For those who get “could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access is denied”…

    Have you checked if you are using the right letter for your usb drive? I mean if I am doing it the whole process with a usb drive where the letter assigned to it is K, then I’ll have to type this: “bootsect.exe /nt60 K:” probably that’s why we can get that error message…

    Greetings…

  394. Jingoman says

    i tried all the above steps and worked perfectly fine except the last step BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (H being my usb drive letter)
    response from the cmd prmpt TARGET VOLUMES WILL BE UPDATED WITH BOOTMGR COMPATIBLE BOOTCODE.

    COULD NOT MAP DRIVE PARTITIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED VOLUME DEVICE OBJECTS:
    ACCESS IS DENIED.

    anybody with a solution please?

  396. palash says

    my hdd install linux but when 1 drive remove its have no run. and when open my computer its hung. what can i do.plese give me solution.

  398. Dan says

    I completely bricked my computer trying to install libc6 and its dependencies in Ubuntu without an internet connection. My computer refused to boot, or even accept a bootable Linux USB. This clear, concise guide saved me so much headache! Thank you!!!

  399. shubhajeet naik says

    hi,
    it happend. but now i can’t boot from cd drive. can u please tell how to make my laptop defaule cd bootable…

  403. Roger says

    @RRG… There are so many easy ways to get your spelling and grammar correct. For example, make sure YOU are using the correct software, run your spell checking software, run your grammar checking software, get an education, do some study, install a typing tutorial program and practise using it, even just use a dictionary! (Can you use one?) There are so many easy ways…

  405. RRG says

    f**k of u all ppl. there r so many essy ways to make a bootable usb.. make sure u r using a orrect software.. like novicorp wintoflash…..

  406. conrad77 says

    thanks to the nice guide…

    to all who got “could not map dive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access denied” run CMD as Administrator by going to start/all programs/accessories and right click command and select run as administrator then do the last step…

  409. Fredo says

    Hello everyone, I had already read something like this before and everytime I’ve read this sort of tutorial, it’s always ambiguous…
    Basically, here you’re creating a bootable win vista or win 7 setup USB key… nothing more nothing else
    and if you want to waste your time doing all this total nonesense, be my guests! But if you want to do this the proper “SMART” way… just get Win2Flash from Novicorp (go ahead, look for it!) and stop wasting everyone’s time and wasting bandwidth!!!

  410. Selvan says

    How about with a System Repair Disc. The Aspire 5251 did not come with a CD/DVD and “bootsect.exe” is not found on the Repair Disc of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit… Thanks

  413. Microbe says

    I really like the copyrighted screenshots LOL. Why are people so precious about such stuff when they likely have borrowed stuff themselves. It’s a screenshot dammit…why would you think YOUR screenshot is so special that no one can replicate it.

    sigh

  415. yash says

    hello

    i have tried all these but at the time of disk list my usb is not showing there. Can u tell what is the problem?
    Its a fabulous technique.
    plzzzzz reply in my mail id..

  419. windows hate says

    i hate this fucking shit because it don’t work!!!!!! when i install the things the say here my computer is dead and cannot start windows and even cannot start the reboot cd!!! so be prepared to kill your pc!!!

  422. aion says

    hello…thanx for the amazing tutorial.but i can perform the last steps..it says could not map dive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access denied..
    what should i do??
    please tell me..
    thanx

  425. guard says

    Hi,

    I was looking for an option to boot from USB as my laptop’s CD drive is not working.

    The write-up is clear. After the installation from USB, can we format the data in USB and use it like another normal flash drive to store data?

    Plz clarify.

  426. Chaz says

    This also works to install Windows 2008 Server products. Thanks for a great Tutorial!

  427. David says

    You need to ‘runas Administrator’ cmd.exe then run these last commands otherwise you will receive:

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied.

    David

  429. Scott says

    @Vidura : did you get an answer to intowindows.com/bootable-usb/#comment-4441 ?

    I’m getting the same error and I do not have a write-protect switch on my USB thumbdrive.

    E:\boot>bootsect /nt60 s:
    Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

    Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects:
    Access is denied.

    Anyone know of how to get around this?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  432. Roman says

    Hi I was wondering will this work by boot commands work for booting windows XP?? or there is some other special boot commands for XP differ from Vista\Windows 7???

    Anyone with good knowledge Please Reply Thanks!!

  436. giorgos says

    why should not someone do this by right clicking on the usb??????should everyone learn these commands??

  437. Montezz says

    This is some excellent tech writing, thanks for the clear instructions, worked great

  438. Philipino says

    thanks for great tutorial, i can now make bootable usb not only win7 but windows XP

    more power

  441. martin says

    hi guys i would like my usb to be bootable so i could go and get my ghost image how do i do that please email.

  442. martin says

    hi guys i would like my usb to be bootable so i could go and get my ghost image how do i do that please

  444. tvshub says

    Maybe this will help, no warranty that this info is accurate, but some of it is.
    -bootsect.exe is on Vista disc, not on XP disc.
    -XP uses NTLDR, Vista uses BOOTMGR (OS setup different between xp & vista)
    -USB stick format must be what system BIOS can recognize as bootable — some older BIOS version only boot devices with FAT16, and there’s some other stuff that we are still learning about. So, this is why everyone may get different results. Computers are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get, and they melt in your hands if you’re not cool.

  445. Sobaixu says

    I followed this guide and it is not accurate. I have made some minor edits to help others who have the same issue as me after following this giude. aka. Boot mgr is missing error…
    So here’s the REAL working guide.

    Guide to making a bootable USB drive using Vista or Windows 7

    (Note: this guide will not work on WinXP.)

    1. Insert your USB stick into USB port (MUST be 4GB or higher).

    (Note: Backup the data on your USB drive as we are going to format it.)

    2. Open the Command Prompt: (follow steps listed below to do this)

    Go to Start Menu >

    All programs >

    Accessories >

    Right click on ‘Command Prompt’

    Select ‘Run as Administrator’

    3. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

    DISKPART (hit enter)

    LIST DISK (hit enter)

    (Note: Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk numbers of all drives connected to your PC)

    4. In this step, enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter:

    SELECT DISK 1 (Replace “DISK 1” with your USB drive’s disk number, For example: If your usb is 4GB,
    and Disk 2 shows 4000mb disk size, type SELECT DISK 2, as that is your usb drive)
    CLEAN

    CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

    SELECT PARTITION 1

    ACTIVE

    FORMAT FS=FAT32 (Format process may take a few minutes, depending on the size of the USB drive)

    ASSIGN

    EXIT

    (Note: Don’t close the command prompt as we need it for the next step. Just minimize it)

    5. Insert your Windows DVD in the DVD drive.
    Note the drive letter of the DVD Drive and USB Drive.
    (Here I use “D” as my DVD drive letter and “F” as my USB drive letter)

    NOTE: Drive letters can be assigned or changed. In the start menu right click “Computer”,
    select “Manage”. A window will open. Select Disk Managment (Near the bottom of the list
    on the left side panel), Right click a drive to assign, change or remove the drive letter).

    6. Go back to command prompt window and execute the following commands:

    D: CD BOOT (Where D: is your DVD drive letter) And hit Enter.

    BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 F: (Where F: is your USB drive letter) And hit Enter.

    XCOPY D:\*.* /S/E/F F:\ (Where D: is your DVD drive, and F: is your USB Drive) And hit Enter.

    8. Wait for DVD contents to copy to USB.

    You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer
    that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

  449. Jitendra says

    Hi,
    Can u let me know,how can i install xp from USB.Please suggest how can do it.

    Thanks & Regards
    Jitendra Kumar

  450. kartik says

    hey guys why to make usb disk bootable just install any version of windows in ur usb drive directly but it should be 8gb usb drive for win 7 and vista and it should be 4 gb for xp,98 and vista portable.

  455. Petterman says

    Well done, works exactly as described. I’ve been looking around for this type of information for a few hours. Found this and i’m happily installing 2k3, 2k8, 2k8R2 on servers by plugging in my usb.

    Thank you!

  464. Mehul says

    Please please any one give me instruction to make my bootable USB back to normal. Because my USB drive speed is toooooooo slow. Copying speed is below 1MB/s.
    My e-mail address is “[email protected]”

  467. admin says

    @ Hawksie
    It’s not possible to install Windows 7 exactly on a USB flash drive. Here is the guide that help you carry Windows 7 on USB flash drive:
    intowindows.com/install-windows-7-on-usb/

  468. Hawksie says

    Yeah i have done this but i want to make my flahs brive a local disk so that I may install an os onto it.
    Regards Tim

  471. Vidura says

    after bootsect.exe/nt60 H:i get this
    target volumes will be updated with boot mgr compatability boot code.

    could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access is denied

  475. arefiqrc says

    How to insert windows dvd on optical drive while i’m using netbook?? did’t not have dvd drives

  477. david says

    And I also have unkind words for people who underexplain this process because I have been tearing my hair out for the last 3 days trying to get a bootable usb to put XP no my netbook without any luck. There is no reason this needs to be this hard.

    So, to be clear when you say this ‘won’t work with XP’ do you mean:

    a.) If you’re on a PC running Windows XP and you’re trying to make a USB Installation drive to install XP/Vista/7/whatever.
    or do you mean
    b.) If you’re trying to create a USB Installation drive to install XP.
    Eh?

  478. Swordfish says

    Sunny, because of retards like you I could not make a bootable USB stick till now. Everyone that was posting this type of tutorial did the mistake called “THINKING ON HIS OWN” and removed the “BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:” part, because “it worked for him”.

    SO FUCK OFF.

    And thanks for the tutorial.

  479. Sunny says

    In my experience, we don’t need to do these complicated setup like yours.

    What I do is simply use the ‘format’ option for the thumb drive in Windows Explorer (right-click menu), by using the default settings. Then, extract the files in the ISO image into the thumb or simply copy all the files from setup folder to drive, and then plug’n’boot. The command prompt and code are no needed.

    I have tried this simple method many times and they all work on my 4 computers, because I heard that USB booting is originally supported in Windows Vista or higher.

    PS XP is absolutely incompatible with this function

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