How to Make a Bootable USB Flash Disk Windows Vista Installer
Mr Dave Glover of Blogs.MSDN.com wrote a guide on how to create a USB Thumb Drive Vista Installer. The article is interesting because recently a friend of mine wishes to install Windows Vista onto a laptop in which DVD drive is not working anymore (it’s already dead).
BTW, this is really useful for all DVD less laptops. So, I wrote a Complete Step-by-Step Beginner’s Style Guide on how to do it easily, Not Just For the Geeks But For All.
1. Format the USB Stick as NTFS: Open Windows Explorer and Right-Click the Drive > Choose the Format Option
2. In the File System Combo box, Choose NTFS and Click the Start Button to begin.
3. Afterwards, Open the Command Prompt as Administrator: In Start Search type, cmd > Press CTRL + Shift + Enter
or you will get… “Access is denied” Message after launching diskpart command.
4. Setting the USB Partition Active (Diskpart.exe)
a. In the Command prompt, type: Diskpart and press Enter
b. Please wait for a while and type: list volume and press Enter
- The command will let you see all the drives and partitions
c. Find which volume for your Removable USB Drive, in my case 6, Therefore Type: select volume 6 and press Enter again.
d. type: active and press enter.
DiskPart marked the current partition as active.
To learn more about the commands, press ? and Enter Key.
Now you already finished setting the volume active so, type the command Exit and press Enter Again
5. Create a Boot Sector (bootsect.exe)
What is Bootsect? In the Command Prompt, enter the following command to learn about the tool: bootsect /?
SYNTAX:
bootsect {/help|/nt60|/nt52} {SYS|ALL|:} [/force]
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.
It is located at your Windows Vista installer directory called \boot
1. Let’s go back to the guide…First, Find where’s your DVD Drive is located (Windows Vista Installer) and go to the boot directory, which in my case Drive F:
Next, type: bootsect(space)/nt60(space)Flash Drive Letter.
C:\Windows\System32>f:
F:\>cd boot
F:\BOOT>bootsect /nt60 g:
Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.G: (\\?\Volume{e5e56f28-84e3-11dd-bd4b-00188bdb682d})
Successfully updated NTFS filesystem bootcode.
Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.
F:\BOOT>
6. You have now successfully created a Boot Sector for the Vista Installer… Finally, Open Windows Explorer > Go to the the Windows Vista Installer DVD Drive and Copy these Files and folders onto the USB Stick:
1. Boot Directory
2. Sources Directory
3. Files in the root directory (drive)
That’s it!
Now you have a USB Stick Bootable Vista Installer… which BTW Rocks! (As Mr David says… Anyway, Me too!!!)
It’s very useful in troubleshooting and fixing Windows Vista problems e.g. Unbootable, infected by a virus, very slow and many more.
Tags: boot, boot sector, Bootable, Bootsect, command, command prompt, Computer, drive, dvd, Fixing, Flash, flash drive, hard disk, laptop, partition, problem, Prompt, start, system, Troubleshoot, Type, usb, usb drive, usb thumb drive, Windows, windows vista
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Creating a Vista Bootable USB Key - The Original .NET Geek on 02 Dec 2008 at 7:29 pm #
[...] http://www.pctipsbox.com/how-to-make-a-bootable-usb-flash-disk-windows-vista-installer/ [...]
Satyendra on 11 Dec 2008 at 12:47 pm #
Sir,
All well but this “active” command not work when u r using XP to create bootable vista USB.
Plz give some solution regarding.
Thanx
WareWolf on 09 Jan 2009 at 3:40 am #
Memory stick/usb devices often will not allow you to format them as NTFS..
Devin Owens on 28 Jan 2009 at 2:48 am #
Sir, This was very helpful!
Do you have a youtube or any other websites?
Id love to see more from you.
The past few weeks Ive ben needing this because my dvd writer doesnt work you saved me!
josh. on 18 Mar 2009 at 5:19 am #
ok ok no need for help. i got it. if anyone else is having problems with that u should first type in these commands.
type: list disk
type: select disk X
type: clean
type: create partition primary
type: list partition
type: select partition X
& then type: active
then proceed with the above tutorial.
cheers mates
Roland Schweiger on 23 Jun 2009 at 3:49 pm #
thanks very much for this information.
It is perfekt to know that i can create a bootable windows Vista with “on-board equipment” diskpart and bootsect.
in my particular case i needet an usb boot media in order to boot Windows7 on a mini notebook without any optical drive.
Just one hint: on many machines, the BIOS requires the USB media to be formatted with FAT or FAT32 and not NTFS.
When using the bootsect.exe, it will detect wheather the usb media is fat or ntfs.
many thanks again for this hint.
greetings from Dresden in Germany.
Roland Schweiger
Reha on 30 Jun 2009 at 7:14 am #
Due to some unknown reason even though I am following the steps one by one and successfully completing the usb key, the computer does not boot from the usb key, and I have tried it on several computers to check if it is the computer and it did not work on any of them.
hajir on 20 Jul 2009 at 9:37 am #
i have also tried all these steps and when booting from USB device it says ” can not find boot sector on the drive ” i have also tried many other websites they are all have same procedure except making USB device bootable in DOS mode, but i didn’t try formatting in FAT32 mode which iam going to do it now , wish me luck
desrtfx on 31 Jul 2009 at 12:20 am #
Did it way easier:
Make sure that the “Hidden Files and Folders” plus the “Protected Operating System Files” are visible.
Format the USB Stick as FAT/FAT16/FAT32 (depending on the size) (I use the HP USB Disk format tool)
Copy the WHOLE CONTENTS of the VISTA (or Windows 7 RC) DVD over to the Stick.
Put the Stick in the computer where it should start from & boot.
Worked fine on each machine I tried it so far.
smith on 04 Oct 2009 at 5:11 am #
i wasn’t able 2 go more than step d.
the bootsect command was not working.
pl help me out