Alright. So, why would I want to do this anyway?
Well I had to fix a pc and it wouldn't read a Vista DVD, no matter what, it just would not boot from DVD, even tried multiple drives. Also I don't like to carry Discs and tend to scratch them.
What you will need:
A PC running Vista (or XP)
A USB Drive thats 4gig minimum
(I will write how to create this using XP at the end)
So insert the Vista DVD into the Vista machine, close the auto run and then insert your USB thumb drive.
Run the CMD prompt, (holding ctrl to enter as Administrator)
Now, you need to format the drive, create a primary partition and activate it. Then we write to it.
So in CMD write the following commands:
Thats the thumb drive all formatted ready to go, now we need to copy the install files over and make the drive bootable.
For this we stay in the CMD prompt with Admin and enter then following:
Replace the letter (d: ) with your DVD ROM letter and the letter (e: ) with your USB Drive newly assigned letter.
Now for the last tricky bit, to make it bootable enter the following in CMD:
Navigate to your DVD (d: ) then cd boot ->
(Again assumes D: is DVD and E: is USB)
*** If you are using XP to create the bootable Vista Thumb drive, its almost the same, but you will have to format the thumbdrive manually. (right click, format)
Thats it! you now have a bootable USB thumbdrive to install Vista off. All you have to do is set the BIOS to boot from "Removable" or "USB" depending on the board. Also on older PC's you can just press F8 when they are booting and select the USB drive to boot from. Once Vista has copied and expanded the install files in the setup process, its safe to remove the drive and set the PC to boot from Primary HDD, then finish the install.
Hope someone finds this usefull (I tore my hair out working it all out)
Sn@Ke
Well I had to fix a pc and it wouldn't read a Vista DVD, no matter what, it just would not boot from DVD, even tried multiple drives. Also I don't like to carry Discs and tend to scratch them.
What you will need:
A PC running Vista (or XP)
A USB Drive thats 4gig minimum
(I will write how to create this using XP at the end)
So insert the Vista DVD into the Vista machine, close the auto run and then insert your USB thumb drive.
Run the CMD prompt, (holding ctrl to enter as Administrator)
Now, you need to format the drive, create a primary partition and activate it. Then we write to it.
So in CMD write the following commands:
- diskpart
- list disk (note: use this to find the name of your USB drive)
- select disk 1 (note: assuming your USB is disk 1)
- clean
- create partition primary
- select partition 1
- active
- format fs=fat32
- assign
- exit
Thats the thumb drive all formatted ready to go, now we need to copy the install files over and make the drive bootable.
For this we stay in the CMD prompt with Admin and enter then following:
- xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\
Replace the letter (d: ) with your DVD ROM letter and the letter (e: ) with your USB Drive newly assigned letter.
Now for the last tricky bit, to make it bootable enter the following in CMD:
Navigate to your DVD (d: ) then cd boot ->
- d:\boot\Bootsect.exe /nt60 e:
(Again assumes D: is DVD and E: is USB)
*** If you are using XP to create the bootable Vista Thumb drive, its almost the same, but you will have to format the thumbdrive manually. (right click, format)
Thats it! you now have a bootable USB thumbdrive to install Vista off. All you have to do is set the BIOS to boot from "Removable" or "USB" depending on the board. Also on older PC's you can just press F8 when they are booting and select the USB drive to boot from. Once Vista has copied and expanded the install files in the setup process, its safe to remove the drive and set the PC to boot from Primary HDD, then finish the install.
Hope someone finds this usefull (I tore my hair out working it all out)
Sn@Ke
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