Comments on: Install Windows 7 from a USB Memory Stick

By: Catherine

Catherine — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:46:32 +0000

The simpler way to install Windows 7 from USB is FlashBoot utility.
It automates everything.
http://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 22:50:41 +0000

Thank you so much for this post ! I’ve been trying for days to figure out how to boot up a windows 7 install from memory card. Other posts I found just left me with a laptop that wouldn’t even boot up at all. Now thanks to you I have a laptop running windows 7 flawlessly. Thanks again !

By: Handpix

Handpix — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:34:53 +0000

Another tip. You can use the command line to format and perform a quick format. Use:

format /q /fs:fat32

This has the same “20 second” format, and can be run from the command line. This is necessary if you are running 2008, or an OS that does not allow you to format FAT32 from the GUI, and you still wish to quick format.

Thanks for the great article!

By: Steve Wiseman

Steve Wiseman — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:01:31 +0000

Not sure how the E: got in there…removed it.

Yes that format is slow, since it is the long format, and not the quick format…glad you got it working

By: David Goodman

David Goodman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:30:59 +0000

I found the format bit to be *very* slow doing it the command window.So, after leaving it for 20 minutes (only did 17%) on my external 60GB USB hard drive, I unplugged it and went to Windows and did a Quick format, which finished in about 20 seconds.

Can I also as what the e: bit is in the xcopy?

I did

xcopy g:\ f:\ /s/e/f

which worked.

Thanks for the info on this page. I’ve just installed Windows 7 on my Samsung NC10 using the info on here.

By: Joshua Hamlett

Joshua Hamlett — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:35:57 +0000

Left out something necessary on some USB Flashdrives like the Sandisk U3 Cruzer:

First of all, you need a Windows NT 6.x setup disk like the one you are copying the files off of or if you are installing an x64 OS but are prepairing the disk on a x32 machine, a 32-bit Win NT 6.x setup disk (you can also get this from the WAIK I think), and in the boot folder you will find a program called “bootsect.exe.”

You will need to in the command prompt run these commands where o is your optical drive and f is your flash drive:
cd o:\boot
bootsect /nt60 f:

Note: These commands should be run immediately after the ones described in the email. The bootsect.exe might be in the boot folder of your computer already, in which case you can simply ommit the drive letter of the optical disk in the command above.

By: Steve Wiseman

Steve Wiseman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:00:13 +0000

Thanks for the tip. Very good idea. If I remember, ASUS did the same when I had the machine fresh (Except with XP).

By: Graham Thompson

Graham Thompson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:54:36 +0000

Thanks Steve, it’s always good to get more info out there!

I am impressed with the speed increase between Vista SP2 and Win7 RTM on the N270 chips. Not sure I would deploy just yet though!

One thing to mention is that if installing the OS via an external drive you may encounter issues later on with updates etc looking for the i386 folder on that drive letter.

To circumvent the above issue you need to edit the default OS i386 drive path via the registry. The key is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup. Edit the String named ‘SourcePath’. I would usually copy the i386 folder to the local drive (space permitting) and point the String to it.

Hope this helps.