This guide will teach you how to create a bootable usb drive or memory card that can be used to install Windows Vista or Windows 7.
This is the ideal way to install Windows on a netbook as the majority of netbooks have no optical drive.
First you need to format your usb drive / memory card as NTFS, this can be done by right clicking on the drive in my computer and selecting format.
Next open a Command Prompt window from Start menu, it can be found under accessories. Right-click on Command Prompt and select the "Run as administrator" option.
Now type diskpart in the Command Prompt window and press Enter, this will load the DiskPart program.
Now type the following command: list volume
This will show a list of all the drives in your computer, make a note of the volume your usb drive is.
We now need to select the usb drives volume number,
In this case we would type select volume 7 as the usb drive is listed as volume 7
The drive needs to be made active so type: active to mark the drive as active
Now exit diskpart by typing exit
Now we need to create a boot sector on USB drive so your computer can boot from it, we will use the bootsect.exe utility which can be found on the Windows 7 / Windows Vista DVD under the boot folder or downloaded form here.
Ensure it is copied to the desktop or wherever you are currently working from in command prompt (in dos cd foldername changes the folder and cd.. moves back a folder)
Now enter bootsect /nt60 I:
Here I is the letter of my usb drive, replace it with the correct letter for your system, (Find this out by looking at what drive letter your usb stick is in my computer)
Now all you need to do is copy the files across from your Windows 7 or Vista DVD.
Now all you need to do is startup the computer you wish to install Windows on and tell it to boot from the usb drive or memory card, this will be different depending on the computer.
On my MSI Wind netbook I can press F11 and select which device you wish to boot from. Some older computers and laptops might not support booting from USB.
There you go, Windows 7 installing from the SD card in the laptops card reader.
This is the ideal way to install Windows on a netbook as the majority of netbooks have no optical drive.
First you need to format your usb drive / memory card as NTFS, this can be done by right clicking on the drive in my computer and selecting format.
Next open a Command Prompt window from Start menu, it can be found under accessories. Right-click on Command Prompt and select the "Run as administrator" option.
Now type diskpart in the Command Prompt window and press Enter, this will load the DiskPart program.
Now type the following command: list volume
This will show a list of all the drives in your computer, make a note of the volume your usb drive is.
We now need to select the usb drives volume number,
In this case we would type select volume 7 as the usb drive is listed as volume 7
The drive needs to be made active so type: active to mark the drive as active
Now exit diskpart by typing exit
Now we need to create a boot sector on USB drive so your computer can boot from it, we will use the bootsect.exe utility which can be found on the Windows 7 / Windows Vista DVD under the boot folder or downloaded form here.
Ensure it is copied to the desktop or wherever you are currently working from in command prompt (in dos cd foldername changes the folder and cd.. moves back a folder)
Now enter bootsect /nt60 I:
Here I is the letter of my usb drive, replace it with the correct letter for your system, (Find this out by looking at what drive letter your usb stick is in my computer)
Now all you need to do is copy the files across from your Windows 7 or Vista DVD.
Now all you need to do is startup the computer you wish to install Windows on and tell it to boot from the usb drive or memory card, this will be different depending on the computer.
On my MSI Wind netbook I can press F11 and select which device you wish to boot from. Some older computers and laptops might not support booting from USB.
There you go, Windows 7 installing from the SD card in the laptops card reader.
im gonna try it out.
