Are you looking to install Windows on a new PC or repair an existing one using a pendrive? You can create a bootable flash disk using the command prompt (cmd) to install Windows 10/11, 8.1, and 7. While there are third-party tools available for creating a bootable USB drive, utilizing cmd eliminates the need for additional apps.
The command prompt is a robust tool capable of performing various tasks when you’re familiar with the commands. While third-party tools like the Microsoft Official USB Installer exist and can automate the process, cmd provides a powerful and manual alternative for creating a bootable flash drive. Such tools have limitations and take a long time to format and write Windows files into the USB flash drive. Some tools also cost money.
How To Make Flash Drive Bootable Using CMD (Command Prompt)
Here is a simple way to turn a USB flash drive into bootable media to install any version of Windows, like XP, 7, 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 or 11. All you need is a flash drive with a storage capacity of 8GB or more and the downloaded ISO file of Windows.
NB: Pay critical attention to the pictures attached to this post, any area marked yellow should be looked at very well.
Follow these steps to make a flash drive bootable using cmd:
- Slot your flash drive and go to start. Search for CMD.
- Right-click on the cmd and run as an administrator.
3. Once the command prompt is open.
Type diskpart and hit enter. It will enter into the disk partition management mode.
4. Type list disk and hit enter. Here you can see all the disks on your computer. It doesn’t show disk partitions but a list of the connected disk to your computer.
5. After you get the list of disks, find your flash drive by size. Here mine is 29 GB which is Disk 2.
Now let’s select the flash drive by typing select disk <disk no.> e.g. select disk 2 and hit enter.
6. Once the USB flash drive is selected, type clean and press Enter.
This command will erase everything from the flash drive. Make sure it does not contain your important files that later you may need. So do a backup before cleaning it off.
7. Next, you need to make your flash drive a primary partition
Type create partition primary and hit enter.
8.Once the disk is a primary partition, make it an active drive.
Type active and hit enter on your keyboard. The command will activate the flash drive for the next step.
9. Now, format the flash drive.
Type format fs=fat32 quick and hit enter. This command will format the flash drive in quick mode.
So you need to format as format fs=ntfs quick, and should work.
All done, you just made your USB flash drive bootable using cmd. Close this command prompt by using the exit command.
To Install Windows 10/11, 8.1 & 7 Using the USB bootable flash drive
You must copy windows files from the PC to the flash drive. If you have a copy of windows installation setup.
It may take some time to copy the files since Windows files take around 4 GB on the disk. The speed also depends on the flash drive. Use USB 3.0 flash drive on the same port for a faster transfer rate.
Once done, you are ready to install Windows using this flash drive. Remove and re-insert the flash disk, and it will get the windows setup icon which confirms that it is bootable media now.
Conclusion
If you can make USB flash sticks bootable, they are useful tools for installing Windows on any computer. Rather than depending on third-party programs to make USB sticks bootable, use the command prompt (Cmd), which can do this quickly and effectively with a few commands in under a minute.
Make sure the flash drive is of a good caliber; USB 2.0 is no longer in use, so you might want to use USB 3.0 instead. Installation times are accelerated by the faster transmission rate that USB 3.0 flash devices provide.
If you don’t already have a USB 3.0 flash drive, you might want to get one from store.dannycom.org , which has a quicker transfer rate of up to 225 MB/s.
After the flash drive is properly booted, you can store your data alongside Windows in a secure manner.
