How To Install Windows Vista With A Flash Drive or Pendrive, How To Create Windowns Vista Bootable USB Drive

Making a bootable Windows Vista installation USB drive is far simpler than doing so for Windows XP because the utility is built into the operating system and can be deployed from the Command Prompt itself. All you would need is a computer running the Windows Vista operating system, the original Windows Vista installation DVD and at least a 4 GB USB fash drive.

Follow the simple steps ahead to make your own Windows Vista bootable USB drive.

Step 1: Start Windows Vista, insert the pen drive into the computer’s USB port. Start Command Prompt, type ‘diskpart’ and press [Enter].

Step 2: Type ‘list disk’ and press [Enter]. Carefully note down the USB fash drive’s disk number listed here. In this case it would be ‘Disk 1’.

Step 3: Type ‘Select disk 1’ and press [Enter]. Here the Diskpart utility is instructed to choose the disk 1 as the drive to be worked on.

Step 4: Type ‘Clean’ and press [Enter]. This command clears out all the information of the volumes, partitions, boot sectors and the MBR from the USB fash drive.

Step 5: Type ‘Create partition primary’ and press [Enter]. This command will create a primary partition on the USB fash drive.

Step 6: Type ‘Select partition ’1’ and press [Enter]. This command instructs the Diskpart utility to select the newly created partition.

Step 7: Type ‘Active’ and press [Enter]. This command will make the current partition (primary) active to enable the USB fash drive to boot from.

Step 8: Type ‘Format fs=fat32’ and press [Enter]. This command formats the selected drive partition using the FAT32 fle system.

Step 9: Type ‘Assign’ and press [Enter].This command assigns a drive letter to the newly formatted partition. As there is no drive letter specifed in the command line, the next available drive letter is assigned to the drive.

Step 10: Exit from the Diskpart utility using the ‘exit’ command and pressing [Enter]. Now insert the Windows Vista DVD in the optical drive and type the command ‘xcopy e:*.* /s /e /f F:’ and press [Enter]. This command will dump all the contents of the Windows Vista DVD onto the USB fash drive. Your USB drive is now ready to install Windows Vista on any computer. Just set the boot sequence in the BIOS of the system to boot from the USB, insert the USB fash drive into the computers USB port and turn on the computer. Follow the regular installation for Windows Vista.

Note: To know more about the Diskpart utility commands, browse through the URL http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415 . Installing Windows XP or Windows Vista from a USB fash drive is much faster as compared to installing from a CD/DVD. A high-speed fash drive would make a diference.