How to transfer the necessary information from a CD or DVD to a flash drive. Transferring the contents of one bootable flash drive to another How to copy Windows from a disk to a flash drive
The operating system is usually installed from a DVD or downloaded the necessary files from the Internet. But what about those users who do not have a DVD drive in their computer or laptop? There is also not always a stable Internet connection, and in principle you cannot download files to a new computer without an OS. In these cases, it is best to use a bootable USB flash drive on which the OS installation image is saved. We will tell you in detail how to burn Windows to a flash drive - which applications are easier to master and how to configure them correctly.
Many programs can record Windows OS to a flash drive. We have selected the best ones for you - with simple settings that produce consistently high-quality results. Prepare a USB flash drive with a capacity of at least 4 GB and delete all files from it.
MediaCreationTool
If you need to install Windows 10, use the application from Microsoft. It is available for download on the company website. On the link page, click “Download tool now”. After the download is complete, run the file and agree to the license terms.
How to make a bootable USB flash drive in MediaCreationTool: in the first step, select that you need to create installation media. In the settings, select the OS version and architecture (32- or 64-bit), language. Next, specify the recording direction – USB device and open a specific flash drive.
The process of copying files from the Microsoft Internet resource and forming the media will begin. You will then see a notification that your USB device is ready.
A simple and easy-to-learn utility, you can download it from the developer’s website - click on the Russian version in the list. Without registration, UltraISO is allowed to be used for up to 30 days without restrictions on functions.
How to use UltraISO:
- Install the application, when starting, click “Trial period”.
- In the File – Open submenu, find the Windows image in the form of *.iso.
- In the “Boot” section, click the “Burn hard disk image” sub-item.
- In the new window, specify the flash drive (Disk Drive sub-item), recording method – USB-HDD+.
- Click "Record".
Sometimes you first need to format the media to completely clear it of previous data. To do this, after selecting the settings, first click “Format”.
The utility is free and available on the developer's website. Does not require installation, is also suitable for older versions of Windows OS - 2003, XP, 2000. How to write an image to WinSetupFromUSB:
- Specify the media in the “USB disk” line.
- Check the sub-item “Auto format it” and NTFS.
- Select which OS version you will write from your hard drive to the flash drive.
- Specify the path to the image to be recorded using the button with 3 dots.
- Accept the user agreement, click "GO" to start.
For versions XP and 2000, you must specify the folder with the files, and not the *.iso file. This can be a folder on a CD or an image unpacked by an archiver.
Rufus
Another popular free utility for creating a bootable flash drive, it is small in size and fast. Available on the Rufus website. To write a Windows OS image to a USB flash drive:
- Select a recording device.
- At the bottom, click on the button with the disk drawn, select the item for the ISO image.
- Click "Start".
To properly copy the installation files, Rufus will first format the media. Finally, click on “Close”.
Write to disk
You can burn Windows to a disc using the utilities discussed above, or use a CD and DVD creation application, such as the popular Nero Burning Rom. Launch Nero, in the main menu in the “File” section, click “Open” and find the path to the image. In the recording form, click “Burn”.
Installing the OS
After transferring the image to external media, Windows can be installed on the computer. The process will be slightly different than usual when moving OS files from disk. Before installing Windows from a flash drive, you need to force it to run from a USB device in the BIOS:
- Insert the OS image media into the USB port.
- Turn on the computer, go to the BIOS - to do this, press Del or F2 while turning on. If it doesn’t work, read our guide on how to enter the BIOS on different models of computers and laptops.
- On the Boot tab, use the arrow keys to move the USB device to the first place.
- Save your changes and exit.
- The standard installation will begin.
Creating a bootable USB flash drive with Windows is easy. For version 10, it is convenient to use the proprietary MediaCreationTool, which itself will download the necessary files. Choose any of the listed applications and burn the OS image to a USB drive yourself.
Hello!
To install Windows on a modern computer or laptop, they are increasingly using a regular flash drive rather than a CD/DVD disk with the OS. A USB flash drive has many advantages over a disk: faster installation, compactness, and the ability to be used even on PCs that do not have a disk drive.
If you simply take a disk with the operating system and copy all the data to a flash drive, this will not make it an installation drive.
I would like to look at several ways to create bootable media with different versions of Windows (by the way, if you are interested in the question of a multiboot drive, you can read this:).
What you need
- Utilities for burning flash drives. Which one to use depends on which version of the operating system you decide to use. Popular utilities: ULTRA ISO, Daemon Tools, WinSetupFromUSB.
- USB drive, preferably 4 GB or more. For Windows XP, a smaller one will be suitable, but for Windows 7+, it will definitely not be possible to use less than 4 GB.
- Installation ISO image with the OS version you need. You can make such an image yourself from the installation disk or download it (for example, you can download the new Windows 10 from the Microsoft website using the link: microsoft.com/ru-ru/software-download/windows10).
- Free time - 5-10 minutes.
Creating a bootable Windows USB flash drive
So let's move on to ways to create and burn media with an operating system. The methods are very simple and can be mastered very quickly.
Universal method for all versions
Why universal? Yes, because it can be used to create a bootable USB flash drive with any version of Windows (except XP and lower). However, you can try to burn media in this way with XP - but it doesn’t work for everyone, the chances are 50/50...
It is also important to note that when installing the OS from a USB drive, you do not need to use USB 3.0 (this high-speed port is marked in blue).
To record an ISO image, you need one utility - Ultra ISO (by the way, it is very popular and many people probably already have it on their computer).
By the way, for those who want to burn an installation flash drive with version 10, this note may be very useful: (the article talks about one cool utility, Rufus, which creates bootable media several times faster than analogue programs).
Step by Step Actions
Download the Ultra ISO program from the official website: ezbsystems.com/ultraiso. Let's get started with the process right away.
If you are unable to create bootable media using the ULTRA ISO program, try the following utility from this article (see below).
Creating an image of Windows 7/8
For this method, you can use the recommended Microsoft utility - Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool (link to the official website: microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool).
However, I still prefer to use the first method (via ULTRA ISO) - because this utility has one drawback: it cannot always write a Windows 7 image to a 4 GB USB drive. If you use an 8 GB flash drive, that's even better.
Let's look at it step by step.
Bootable media with Windows XP
To create an installation USB drive with XP, we need two utilities at once: Daemon Tools + WinSetupFromUSB (I provided links to them in
One of the most pressing questions among home users and beyond. A bootable flash drive or USB hard drive can bypass the use of an optical drive, and can also be carried with you if you frequently install systems or repair computers. After all, manufacturers have already stopped equipping their devices - netbooks and ultrabooks - with optical drives. If there is no disk drive, you can reinstall the system only by booting from the installation flash drive. To create such media, the easiest way is to use a special utility. You can write anything to such a USB drive: ERD Commander, a program for working with a hard drive like Paragon or Acronis, as well as an image with Windows, MacOS, etc.
In order to make a bootable USB flash drive from an ISO image necessary (ISO image is a copy of the installation disk in a special container with the ISO extension):
The program will automatically process the ISO image and make bootable USB flash drive, with which you can later install the OS on your computer without using a CD/DVD-ROM or download an image of a portable version of your favorite OS and install it so that it is always at hand. Also, the YUMI utility, which is an analogue of UNetBootin, does a good job of recording images.
How to create/burn an ISO image
It is worth noting that you can create an ISO image from a finished DVD or CD containing a distribution kit with Windows or another necessary program using the CDBurnerXP program. Launch the application and select the item in the main menu "Copy disc". Specify your installation disk in the drive as the source, and to save the finished ISO image, a folder on your hard drive. Click on the button "Copy disc". With this program you can burn previously saved images to optical discs. Having created the image, you can use it to transfer it to a flash drive or memory card using the above-mentioned programs.
Bootable USB flash drive with antivirus
You can check the system for malware by running an antivirus program from a removable device (flash card, portable hard drive, etc.) if Windows has stopped loading at all. I recommend using the following software as a portable antivirus for bootable flash drive: Kaspersky Rescue Disk and Dr.Web LiveUSB. These antiviruses have been tested in practice more than once and have proven themselves well. By following these links you can download the application for recording the antivirus; you will only need a flash drive with a capacity of at least 512 MB. If you want to load some other antivirus or scanner program from a flash drive or USB HDD, having an ISO image, then use.
Windows Emergency Boot
Let's say Windows doesn't start, and you need to save your personal data. If no means help restore the system, then it is best to use the ERD Commander distribution kit (for Windows 7 32bit, Windows 7 64bit and Windows XP 32bit) and an external HDD. ERD Commander is a set of programs that allow you to boot the system from removable media, which makes it possible to start your computer even if the OS files are completely damaged. Burn the ISO file using UNetBootin to a USB flash drive or any program for burning images to disk (ImgBurn, Ashampoo Burning Studio or Nero Burning Rom) at minimum speed and boot the system from it. The interface of this bootloader is in Russian and is intuitive. We call the file manager and get access to the hard drive. We mark all the files that need to be saved and open the external HDD to copy the data to it. There is a risk that you have copied a virus to your hard drive. Therefore, before transferring data to a new Windows system, be sure to install an antivirus and check the files on your portable HDD.
How to burn Windows to a flash drive or USB disk (Windows ISO image on a flash drive)
Attention, the “Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool” utility works perfectly with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 images.
1. Download the utility Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
2. Run the downloaded file as administrator and install.
How to burn Windows to a USB flash drive with Windows USB/DVD Download Tool(similar to UNetBootin from Microsoft) .
1. Specify the Windows 7 or 8 ISO image file by clicking Browse
2. Click Next. Select the device on which the image will be created. Click USB device(if you want to create a flash drive installer) or DVD(if you want to create a bootable DVD). Before specifying the desired device, insert the USB flash drive into the USB port or the DVD into the drive, respectively.
3. Specify the flash drive on which the bootloader image will be written. To start creating the installation flash drive, click Begin copying.
4. Now wait until the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive is completed. After the process is completely completed, you will receive a ready-to-install USB flash drive with Windows 7 or 8.
* Before installing Windows 7 from a flash drive, do not forget to enable booting the computer from a USB device in the BIOS! * The minimum size (volume) of a flash drive must be at least 4GB!
Bootable USB flash drive with Acronis Disk Director 11, True Image 2012, Paragon Partition Manager 11
This assembly is a universal solution for bootable flash drive with the ability to choose from the most popular programs for data recovery, OS and hard drive work. You just need to write the downloaded archive onto a flash drive and you will receive universal bootable usb disk. You can also burn this assembly to disk.
Supported OS bit depth: 32bit + 64bit
Compatible with Vista and Windows 7: Full
Interface language: Russian
System requirements: Processor: Intel Pentium or equivalent, with a frequency of 1000 MHz or higher; RAM: 512 MB and above; Mouse; SVGA video adapter and monitor;
Flash drive larger than 2 GB (for all boot images)
Bootable USB flash drive based on Windows Preinstallation Environment 3.1 (WinPE) includes:
- Acronis Disk Director 11
- Acronis True Image Home 2012
- Paragon Hard Disk Manager 11
- Paragon Partition Manager 11 Professional
- Paragon Home Expert 11
- Windows 7 x86 Recovery Environment
- Recovery environment Windows 7 x64
Instructions for installing a bootloader on a flash drive
Booting a computer from a USB flash drive or other removable media
In order for your computer to start from a CD, DVD, flash drive or external USB drive when rebooted or turned on, you need to make changes to the BIOS settings. Most modern motherboards provide the ability boot from USB flash drive, but on older models sometimes you can only enable booting from optical discs. This problem in some cases can be solved by installing the latest BIOS version, but for very old motherboards such updates may not be released.
After turning on the PC, go to the BIOS by pressing the key "Del" or "F2". Then find the appropriate menu items, indicating the boot order and devices used for this. Depending on the manufacturer and BIOS version, this can be done in the sections "Boot" or "Advanced BIOS features". In addition, modern motherboards allow you to specify the device from which the system will boot without reconfiguring the BIOS. To do this, when you start the PC, you need to call "boot menu". As a rule, this can be done with the key "F12".
We will look at two methods of recording an image Windows 7 to a flash drive
- Write an image to a flash drive using Ultra ISO.
- Write an image to a flash drive using command line tools.
This article only discusses how to burn an image to a flash drive.
- Detailed installation instructions in this article: Installing Windows 7.
- How and where to download the image legally is described in the same article, in the chapter on how and where to download the original image of Windows 7 64 or 32 bit.
If you are not sure how many bits Windows 7 is (32-bit) x86) or 64-bit ( x64)) you will need for the upcoming installation, then you can learn more about the difference between Windows 7 x32 and Windows 7 x64.
Before you begin installing the operating system, you must determine what type of media you will be installing from. Recently, this issue has become especially relevant, since compact devices have become widespread in the computer market. Netbook"and not equipped with optical drives, as well as flash-large-capacity drives that have become so popular and at the same time cope well with the task of a boot disk for the operating system.
If you have it on hand flash- storage (4 GB capacity , because The installation image takes about 2.5 GB), then after carefully studying and following the steps described in this article, you can install the operating system using flash- drive as a boot disk. This will not require any additional software: everything will be done using the command line and the mounted image Windows 7. At all installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive- faster (albeit a little more complex option).
Burning an image to UltraIso on Flash
After you have received the image with Windows 7 you need to record it on some medium. The question arises "How to do it?".This article will tell you how to burn an image to a flash drive ( USB-Flash or HDD-Flash) using the program UltraIso.
Step 1. Let's install the program Ultra ISO(this lesson covers the version 9.31
, although there is no fundamental difference in other versions).
located at the end of the article, in the block Attached files.
Figure 1. UltraISO installation wizard
Click "Further", simultaneously indicating the necessary installation parameters.
On the last window NOT uncheck the boxes "Associate .iso file with UltraIso" And “Install ISO CD/DVD emulator (ISO Drive)”.
Figure 2. Additional tasks for the UltraISO program
Step 2. After installation, launch the program and select in the offer to register the product "Trial period", which will give us the opportunity to use this program for 30 days (which is quite enough to burn our image).
Figure 3. UltraISO installation completed
Step 3. Before we begin manipulating our image, we need to insert into a free USB-output flash drive or external hard drive to which recording will be made.
Step 4. We open our image using "File - Open". Next we go to point "Boot - Write Disk Image (write disk image)".
Figure 4. Burning a Windows 7 image to a USB flash drive
Step 5. In field Disk Drive you need to select your media (if several flash drives are inserted into the computer). Also check that the selected image in the line is correct "Image file". In line "Recording method" choose USB-HDD. When everything is selected correctly, you need to press the button "Record". Before the process begins, you will be asked: “Do you really want to continue the process? All information on the flash drive will be destroyed.". Check the contents of your flash drive, and if there is nothing important on it, feel free to click "Yes". Once the recording is complete, you will be notified that the recording was successful: "Burn successful!". Your bootable USB flash drive is ready.
Burning a Windows 7 image to a USB flash drive using the command line.
- So, to prepare the image, connect flash-disk to usb-port of your computer. Make sure that the flash-the drive does not contain the data you need because flash-the disk will be formatted.
- Now run command prompt Windows. You can find the launch shortcut at:
Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt.
You can also press the key combination "Windows + R", then in the window that opens "running the program" you need to enter the name of the program "cmd" and press "Enter". - Now in the command prompt window that opens, run the command "diskpart". After this, the system disk management utility will launch. Using this program, we will clear the contents of the disk and create a partition on it. After this we can make it active, format it and write the contents of the image to it. Then all we have to do is place the bootloader files on the disk: after that, when loading the operating system, our flash- the disk will be detected as removable media - we can start installation from it Windows 7.
After the system utility loads diskpart, you will see a prompt as a line DISKPART>.
Now you can proceed to executing commands.
Using the command "list disk" you can see a list of all disks on this computer (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Preparing to install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive: creating a bootable USB flash drive
Now if you run the command "select disk number» , Where "number"- this is the number of the disk that is flash- drive, then we will select this drive to apply all subsequent commands that we will enter when working with the utility diskpart.
As can be seen from Figure 1, in our case this will be the command "select disk 3".
But be very careful - you can select any hard drive and delete all data on it.
- Next we will delete all data and partitions on our flash- storage device To do this, run the command clean.
- The next action would be, using the command create partition primary create on flash- new partition on the drive.
- Let's select this section for further application of commands to it using the command select partition 1.
- Let's make it active using the command active.
Figure 6. To format the disk, run the format fs=NTFS command.Now all that remains is to initialize the disk connection using the command assign(an autorun window will open, as if we had just connected it to the computer flash- disk) and exit the utility using the command exit(Fig. 7).
Figure 7. Initializing disk connection with the assign command.
The final step remains - we must copy the bootloader to flash- storage device.
To do this, mount the image Windows 7, which you want to install on your computer.
Now use the command line to navigate to the given (mounted) drive. After that go to the folder boot and run the command bootsect /nt60 K:.
note to the fact that instead of a letter "K" this command must contain the letter that was assigned to your flash drive when executing the assign command.
This command will launch the system utility bootsect with 2 parameters:
- the first one indicates the bootloader version OS (/nt60– parameter required to create a bootloader OS Windows Vista And Windows 7).
- the second parameter is the letter assigned to our flash- drive.
If you mount a 64-bit image Windows 7, then you will not be able to run bootsect, if your operating system is 32 bit - because. this version bootsect is 64 bit.
Copying files to a prepared flash drive.
After the flash drive is prepared, the files are copied from the image:you can mount the image you have with the program DAEMON Tools Lite, and then copy all the files from the mounted disk to the flash drive.
Installation
Now if you restart your computer, then by going to BIOS, you can install your flash drive to boot and install from it Windows 7 (first boot device).You can now move on to the next chapter, which will go into great detail about further installing Windows 7.
Detailed instructions for installing Windows 7 are in this article: Installing Windows 7.
You can also pay attention to recording the image using the utility
Greetings, dear readers! When installing a new operating system on a computer, it will be enough to open the DVD drive, then install the installation distribution and after performing some operations in the BIOS (you can read about what a BIOS is), you can begin to complete the task.
However, what to do if the operating system needs to be installed on so-called portable netbooks or laptops, which, as you probably know, do not have a disk reader. In this case, the operating system is installed from a USB drive.
Herself from a flash drive is no different from installing from a disk, however, the process of writing the installation distribution onto a flash drive itself has some peculiarities. In this article we will look at in several ways. It should be noted here that in addition to recording the Windows distribution kit on a flash drive, you can also write it to a memory card, but not all laptops have the ability to boot from a memory card. Therefore, before creating a bootable flash drive or memory card, you should make sure that your laptop or netbook is capable of booting from a memory card. And how exactly to check you can find out by reading my article:
In fact, installing Windows from a flash drive is no different from installing from a regular DVD drive.
I Method for creating bootable flash media
So, the first method that we will consider is installation using the command line. This means that by specifying special commands we will create bootable removable media. But first we need a flash drive with a capacity of at least 4 GB. This method is, I would say, the most difficult for beginners, since you will have to sequentially enter commands that are not entirely familiar to novice users. Therefore, you should not be afraid of these unfamiliar commands; the purpose of each command is described below.
1. Connect the flash drive to the computer, and then click on start and select the “Run” command. At the command line, you will need to enter cmd.exe and click OK. In this case, the command must be launched as an administrator.
2. In the window that opens, you will need to type “diskpart” to open the disk management utility. After the utility appears, you need to type the “list disk” command, which allows you to view the list of used disks in your PC. You will need to select your flash drive. Let’s say in my example this is disk 1. So, we write “select disc 1”. Thus, we indicate that all subsequent actions will be performed with this disk.
3. In the next step, we will need to clean the flash media to which we will write. Type the command “clean”.
4. After the message “Disk cleanup completed successfully” appears, the next step is to create a new partition by issuing the “create partition primary” command. Here we indicate to the system that in the future we will work with this particular section - “select partition 1”.
5. In order to select this section as active, set the “active” command.
6. Then, in the next step, you will need to format the partition we created on the flash drive in the NTFS file system - “format fs=NTFS”.
7. After formatting the flash drive is completed (100%), you will need to activate the process of connecting the device by specifying the command “assign letter=Z” and pressing “Enter”.
8. Then, after the “connection successful” message appears, type “Exit” to exit diskpart to the command prompt.
E – Disk partition containing the Windows distribution;
Z – Designation of USB storage device.
The copying process itself takes about 50 minutes.
After the copying is complete, all that remains is to restart the computer and go into the BIOS. And then, having set the appropriate settings in the BIOS, you can begin installing the operating system.
II Method for creating bootable flash media
Let's consider the second method how to burn Windows 7 to a USB flash drive. The essence of this method is that to create a bootable flash drive we will need the UltraISO program, with which we will create bootable removable media with the Windows 7 operating system.
If you do not have this program installed, then you can download it from the Internet, and it is distributed on a paid basis. However, you can use the demo version of this program and use this program during the trial period.
So, open the program and click “File – Open”.
In the window that opens, you will need to go to the operating system image and click “Open”. We will look at what an image is and how to create it in one of the future lessons. By the way, let me remind you that various competitions and tournaments are held on the blog, participate and win cash prizes. To have a better chance of becoming a WINNER, you should Subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss new articles. You can read about how to properly subscribe to blog updates by clicking on
Then, in the top menu, click “Boot” and select “Burn hard disk image” from the drop-down menu.
Therefore, before formatting, copy the data that is important to you to your hard drive.
After formatting is successfully completed, click “Burn”.
For a certain period of time, the image will be written to a flash drive or memory card. This method is the simplest compared to the first method.
In general, in addition to the above methods for creating bootable flash media, there are also other various methods. For example, to write a Windows distribution to a memory card or flash drive, use a utility called WinToFlash.
Plus, I also suggest you watch the live video:
The essence of this utility is similar to the previously discussed UltraIso program. That is, you open the program, specify the path to the location of the Windows distribution image, copy and save. What methods of creating bootable flash media do you know? In addition, I recommend that you read the article on your computer. From this article you will learn how to properly install the Windows 7 operating system.
Having considered in this article the question of how to write Windows 7 to a flash drive, you can thereby independently reinstall the operating system on your netbook or laptop using a flash drive.
This is where I will conclude this article. I hope the material was useful and interesting for you.
In the next article I will tell you =>
