Running Windows 10 From a USB Drive. A message pops up asking you to select a partition scheme. Click on the option for 'MBR for BIOS' and then click Yes. At the next screen, click on the option for Legacy to choose the Installation mode. Your Windows 10 USB stick will now be created. Select first boot device to the flash drive: Step 2. It will initiate the Windows 10 installation process from USB flash drive. Here’s, the Windows setup will start and it comes with an option to choose. Click ' Install now ' button to continue the Windows 10.

Need to install a fresh copy of Windows?

Booting Windows 10 (and Windows 7) from a USB stick is straightforward. Within minutes you can have a fresh new version of Windows installed on your PC, laptop, or media center.

Here’s everything you need to know about installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 from a bootable USB stick.

Why Boot a Windows Installation From USB?

  1. From an easy upgrade in Windows update if you reserved your copy, to the included USB stick if you go for a retail purchase, Microsoft provides plenty of options for installing Windows 10.
  2. Don’t let that worry you. The tool works just fine for Windows 7, 8, and even 10. Once you’ve got the tool installed, creating your USB installation drive is a pretty straightforward process. Run the tool and give it permission to make changes to your PC. Click “Browse” to locate your Windows ISO file and then click “Next.”.
Windows 10 Install Usb Stick

If your spare PC doesn’t have an optical drive, or you’re out of DVDs, a bootable USB stick is the best solution.

After all, a USB stick is portable, and you can guarantee it is compatible with every desktop and laptop computer. While some computers might be missing a DVD drive, they all have a USB port.

It’s also quicker to install from USB. A USB drive can be made bootable faster than an optical drive can; it also installs the operating system quicker.

To install Windows 7 or Windows 10 from a USB stick, you need a device with at least 8GB of storage. Before proceeding, ensure that your USB flash drive has been formattedHow to Format a USB Drive and Why You Would Need ToHow to Format a USB Drive and Why You Would Need ToFormatting a USB drive is easy. Our guide explains the easiest and fastest ways to format a USB drive on a Windows computer.Read More.

Ensuring USB Stick Has UEFI Boot Support

Before you download a bootable Windows installation image, it’s important to know the difference between UEFI and BIOS.

Older PCs rely on the basic input/output system (BIOS) to boot the operating system and manage data between the operating system and devices. For the past decade, UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) has replaced BIOS, adding legacy support. UEFI can assist with PC diagnosis and repair without additional software or media.

Fortunately, the most common methods of installing Windows 10 from a bootable USB drive support UEFI and legacy BIOS hardware. So, whichever option you choose should work for your hardware.

Preparing the Windows 10 Bootable USB

Before proceeding, insert your formatted USB flash stick in your PC or laptop.

Make Windows 10 Install Usb Stick

Ready to install Windows 10? While several methods exist, the easiest way to do this is to use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.

To grab this, head to the Microsoft Download Windows 10 page and click Download tool now.

Save the tool to your computer. It’s around 20MB in size, so shouldn’t take too long on a fast connection. Once downloaded, launch the media creation tool and click Accept when prompted.

You’ll be presented with two options. Select Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC and click Next.

Set your preferred Language, Windows 10 Edition, and system Architecture. Note that if these settings cannot be changed, you should clear the checkbox labeled Use the recommended options for this PC. Hit Next again.

Choose USB flash drive, then Next, and select the USB drive from the list. Click Next once more to prompt the downloading of your Windows 10 installation files.

Wait while the bootable USB Windows 10 installer is created. How long this takes will depend on your internet speed. Several gigabytes of data will be installed, so if you don’t have access to a fast internet connection at home, consider a library or even your place of work.

Installing Windows 10 With a Bootable USB Drive

With the installation media created, you’ll be able to install Windows 10. The USB drive is now bootable, so all you need to do is safely remove it from your PC, then insert it into the target device.

Power up the computer you’re installing Windows 10 on and wait for it to detect the USB drive. If this doesn’t happen, reboot, this time pressing the key to access the UEFI/BIOS or boot menu. Ensure the USB device is detected, then select it as the main boot device.

The subsequent reboot should detect the Windows 10 installation media. You’re now ready to install Windows 10! Get started by starting the installation wizard.

Once you’ve worked through the wizard, Windows 10 will be installed. Note that some installation may continue after you log in, so be patient. It’s also worth checking for Windows Updates (Settings > Updates & Security > Windows Update) after installation to ensure everything is up to date.

How to Install Windows 7 From a Bootable USB Drive

Stick

What if you’ve had enough of Windows 10? If you own a valid license for Windows 7, you can also install this from a bootable USB drive.

The process is largely similar, although for older PCs you won’t need to worry about UEFI support. Windows 7 is a great option for newer PCs in terms of being comparatively lightweight. However, support for the operating system ends in January 2020. As such, you should ensure that you upgrade to a more secure operating system when the times comes.

See our full guide to installing Windows 7 from a bootable USB driveHow to Make a USB Installation Disk for Windows 7 Without Extra SoftwareHow to Make a USB Installation Disk for Windows 7 Without Extra SoftwareWant to install Windows 7 on your PC but don't have an optical drive? The solution is to make a USB installation disk.Read More for details.

Keep Your Bootable Windows Installation USB Drive Safe

Making a bootable Windows USB drive is simple:

  1. Format an 8GB (or higher) USB flash device
  2. Download the Windows 10 media creation tool from Microsoft
  3. Run the media creation wizard to download the Windows 10 installation files
  4. Create the installation media
  5. Eject the USB flash device

While you should expect largely trouble-free computing from Windows 10, it’s a good idea to keep the USB boot drive safe. After all, you never know when a hard disk drive can crash, or a partition table will corrupt.

The Windows boot drive features various repair tools that can be used if Windows 10 will not boot. Store the boot drive in a memorable place where it can be easily retrieved for troubleshooting or reinstalling Windows later.

While you’re considering using USB devices for system recovery, why not create a PC repair toolkit on a USB stickThe PC Repair Toolkit in Your Pocket: Boot CD on a USB StickThe PC Repair Toolkit in Your Pocket: Boot CD on a USB StickInside my technician's toolkit I keep a USB flash drive loaded with the most amazing tools on the planet: my PC repair toolkit. In this article, I share its contents.Read More?

Explore more about: UEFI, USB Drive, Windows 10, Windows 7.

  1. About two or three years ago I used the Windows Media Creation Tool and it somehow turned my USB stick Read Only and I could never figure out how it did it or how to make it writable again. Then a few months ago it happened to someone else I know and they were never able to figure it out either. Anyone run into this before and were you able to make your drive read/write again? If so, how?
    Pulling my hair.
    --Greg

    • Greg,

      You could reformat the USB stick. Go into Disk Management and delete the current partitions on the USB stick and then format the drive. Hope that helps.

      James

RECOMMENDED: Click here to fix Windows errors and improve PC performance

This is a complete guide to install Windows 10 from a bootable USB. One of the main advantages of installing a version of Windows operating system from a bootable USB is speed, especially when compared to the traditional way of installing Windows from a DVD.

Even though there are ample amount of free utilities out there to help you create a bootable USB of Windows 10 with a few mouse clicks, it’s possible to prepare the bootable USB without using third-party utilities. All you need to do is execute a bunch of commands in the Command Prompt to make your Windows 10 bootable USB.

The other advantage of the Command Prompt is that it’s error free, meaning you will be able to create the bootable USB without encountering any errors when commands are entered properly.

The method we use for creating a bootable Windows 10 is USB is the same as the method we use for previous versions of Windows operating system. In other words, the procedure is pretty much the same and should not take more than 10 minutes when done correctly.

Here is how you can make bootable USB of Windows 10 from the Command Prompt using the Diskpart command.

Things you will need:

# Windows 10 ISO or Windows 10 DVD

# A USB with 4GB+ size

# A working Windows 7/8/8.1 PC to create the bootable USB

Important: Before you proceed to prepare your Windows 10 bootable media, please check the version of Windows 7/8/8.1 on which you are going to make the bootable USB of Windows. This is because, you can’t prepare the bootable USB of 64-bit of Windows 10 on a PC running Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. In simple words, you can’t use 32-bit installation of Windows to prepare the bootable USB of 64-bit Windows.

So, please read the following line carefully:

# It’s not possible to create 64-bit version of Windows 10 bootable USB on a PC running 32-bit version of Windows.

# You need x64 version of Windows 7/8/8.1 to prepare bootable USB of Windows 10 x64.

Reinstall Windows 10 Usb Stick

# You can create x86 version of Windows 10 bootable USB on computer running x86 version of Windows 7/8/8.1

Install Windows 10 from USB drive

Step 1: Connect your USB drive to Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC and move all important data to a safe location as the drive will be erased during the process. We also suggest you un-plug any other external hard drive connected to avoid selecting a wrong drive during the drive selection.

Step 2: Open elevated Command Prompt. To do so, you can type CMD in Start menu or Start screen and then simultaneously press Ctrl + Shift + Enter keys. Windows 7 users can also navigate to Start menu, All Programs, Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and then click Run as administrator option. Click Yes button when you see the UAC prompt to continue.

Note that it’s very important to open Command Prompt as administrator to avoid errors. Be sure to open the elevated prompt. Most users ignore this step and end up errors while preparing the bootable USB. When you’re launching Command Prompt, you’ll see the UAC prompt where you need to click the Yes button.

Windows 10 Installation Usb Stick Treiber Fehlt

Step 3: In the elevated Command Prompt, type DISKPART and then hit enter key.

Now, type LIST DISK command and press the Enter key again to see all connected disks. This is the important step is you should note the disk number assigned for your internal hard disk and your connected USB drive.

If you have only one internal HDD or SSD, 1 will be the disk number of your USB drive. As you can see in the above picture, the disk number for my USB drive is 1.

Step 4: Type all the following commands one after another and press enter key after each command.

SELECT DISK 1

(IMP: In the above command, replace”1” with the disk number of your USB drive obtained in the previous step. Entering a wrong disk number will cause data loss. So please double check the disk number before entering the disk number.)

(press enter key)

CLEAN

(press enter key)

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

(press enter key)

SELECT PARTITION 1

(press enter key)

ACTIVE

(press enter key)

FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK

IMP: If your PC supports UEFI, please format the drive with FORMAT FS=FAT32 Quick command.

(press enter key)

ASSIGN

(press enter key)

EXIT

(press enter key)

Windows 10 Reinstall Usb Stick

Since we aren’t finished yet, please don’t close the Command Prompt. Simply minimize it to the taskbar and then follow the instructions in the next step.

Step 5: If you’re on Windows 8/8.1 and have the ISO image of Windows 10, right-click on the ISO image and then click Mount option to mount the ISO file. After mounting, open This PC (Computer) and note the drive letter of it.

And if you’re on Windows 7, use an image mounting software such as Virtual CloneDrive and note the drive letter after mounting the ISO. If you’re not sure how to go with it, please follow our how to mount an ISO file in Windows 7 guide for step-by-step instructions to mount your Windows 10 ISO and get the drive letter.

In this guide, we’re assuming “J” as the drive letter of the virtual drive where you have mounted Windows 10 ISO.

And if you have the DVD of Windows 10, simply insert the DVD into the optical drive and note the drive letter of your optical drive. You can then use this drive letter whenever needed.

Step 6: Maximize the Command Prompt that you had minimized in Step 4 and execute the following commands one after another.

J: CD BOOT

(Hit enter key)

Here “J” is the drive letter of your virtual drive containing Windows 10 ISO or DVD drive containing installation files.

CD BOOT and press enter.

Step 7: Finally, type the following command:

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 K:

In the above command, replace “K” with the drive letter of your USB drive that you’re making bootable.

Install Windows 10 Onto Usb Stick

Once you see “Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes” message, simply close the Command Prompt. We are almost done!

Step 8: Finally, copy all the contents of your Windows 10 ISO image to the root of the USB drive. You can either extract ISO file contents or copy files from the mounted drive. The same procedure applies even if you have the DVD of Windows 10. You just need to copy all files to the root of the USB drive.

Step 9: Now that you have your bootable USB of Windows 10, turn on the PC on which you want to install Windows 10, enable booting from USB, set the boot priority to boot from USB, and then restart your PC again to begin installing Windows 10. Follow the very simple on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

If you come across any issues while preparing the bootable USB or installing Windows 10, do let us know by leaving a comment. Before leaving your comment, please double check that you have used an elevated prompt to prepare your bootable USB.

Enjoy the newest version of Windows operating system!

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