Install Windows from USB/pen drive.

I have been in this situation many times where I need to reinstall windows but I have no DVD drive or have a blank DVD to burn the image to. You can follow the very simple 3 steps to install windows from USB / Pen drive installation.

1. Format (Full Format and not Quick Format) the USB Stick with HP USB Flash Utility with NTFS as the file system.
   
2. Run bootsect.exe using the command prompt with the following switches

BootSect.exe /nt60 G: /force

Where G: is your USB/Pen drive.

Bootsect.exe updates the master boot code for hard disk partitions to switch between BOOTMGR and NTLDR. You can use this tool to restore the boot sector on your computer. This tool replaces FixFAT and FixNTFS.

3. Copy all files of the Win 7 iso to the usb-stick. You may either mount the iso using daemon tools and copy or extract the iso using WinRAR.

This method can be used on Windows 7 / Windows Vista.

Posted in: Install, Windows