Installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive. Preparing for the upcoming procedure

Useful tips

Make a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7

Where to download the Windows 7 image - watch the video below

Very often when reinstalling windows required bootable flash drive with Windows 7. How to do it? The process itself is not complicated, but let's try to figure it out.

2 very different ways method in order to create a bootable USB flash drive from an iso image.

We will analyze everything from beginning to end, we will try to clarify all the details of creating a bootable installation flash drive with Windows 7

We also recommend reading the article on how to properly install Windows from a flash drive; sooner or later it may come in handy. All programs used here work perfectly under Windows 7, 8, 10.

The 2nd method is also very noteworthy; with it we will make a bootable Windows 7 flash drive without any programs, using the Windows command line, although it is noticeably more complicated.

It's important to keep in mind that usb ports should be fine (or at least one of them we need). The fact is that if we use a faulty USB, then there may simply be a loss of contact and nothing may work out. Plus, of course, the flash drive should also be in order, in general, keep this in mind.

Original Windows 7 images for flash drive here: http://nnm-club.me/forum/viewforum.php?f=504

Let us clarify the following points when creating a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7:

First we need to find iso- windows image (to do this, in any search engine we write - download Windows 7 torrent, download one of the proposed options using the free torrent program. However, do not forget that you have a good antivirus, plus you can download only from trusted sites, ask your friends and acquaintances about such ). We will assume that we have found
Let's move on to the flash drive, we will completely clear it, so copy all important data from it in advance
Also, don’t forget about the size of the flash drive.. You need at least four GB, although this is not more correct smaller size iso image

How to make a bootable Windows flash drive 7-10? Step-by-step instruction

Now let's prepare the flash drive, for this we need to format it. We do it like this:

We go to “My Computer”, find the flash drive we need there
Click on it right click mice
Select "Format"
In the window that appears, you can also check the box for “Quick, clearing only the table of contents” - this will be quite enough in most cases
That’s it, click “Start”, an additional warning may appear, we agree
We wait for the process to complete (usually no more than a minute)
At the end, the flash drive is ready for further actions, it is completely empty

If you have any questions with formatting or would like to know more about this important and useful process for storage devices, we recommend that you view the corresponding section. In which, by the way, you can also select a program for formatting a flash drive if it does not want to succumb to this process in a standard way(as described above), plus using additional programs formatting a flash drive, you can improve its technical condition.

Now we are almost close to the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7, for this we will consider a very interesting and simple program .

Download the original ISO image of Windows 7

The simplest, most convenient and free program to solve our problem is Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Very convenient, bootable fleshka is done in just 4 clicks, and it can also be made into a boot disk.

Or you can do it from the official website using this direct link http://wudt.codeplex.com/ (copy, paste into address bar browser and press enter).

The system also requires Microsoft .NET Framework_Online_Setup (completely free, online downloader, which means the Internet must be turned on), usually this utility is already installed in different windows builds. Actually it's official application from Microsoft, it is also important for the operation of other programs and games.

And so, you downloaded Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. Now install it.

Open the program. We see this window.

Click on “Browse” and look for the Windows iso image we need on the computer.

Now if you specified an iso image, click “Next”. Now click on “USB device”.

Here we click on “Begin copying”.

And so the recording process began Windows iso image 7 per flash drive. We are waiting for the end.
The Windows 7 bootable USB flash drive is ready.

We recommend that you read the article on how to properly install Windows 7 on a netbook. So you will know what to do if the question arises of reinstalling Winows 7 on a netbook, laptop or computer without disk drive.

The second method is not simple. It is interesting for those who do not want to install any additional programs on their computer

This method uses command line Windows, through which, by the way, you can do many more interesting things.

And so, let's go. We connect the flash drive to the USB port. Please note that a 4 GB flash drive will be used here. Open the command line like this, “Start” - “Run”:

Enter the command “cmd” and press “Enter”:

This is what should appear:

The first command we enter is “diskpart”, a special editor that gives us the ability to manage disks, press “Enter”:

Now we write “list disk” and press “Enter”, thereby getting a list of devices:

Now you need to determine without errors where your flash drive is located, in our case it is “Disk 3”. It most likely will not match yours, just make sure that you have found your flash drive correctly. If you have, for example, a flash drive “Disk 1”, then write it in the line and press “Enter”.

Attention! If you do not correctly identify the flash drive, you can format one of your hard drives and lose all the information on it.

So, enter “select disk 3″, press “enter”
The program detects our flash drive
Now enter “clean”, which will delete files on the flash drive, press “enter”
Next, enter “create partition primary”, press “enter”
With this command we created a section
Now enter “select partition 1”, press “enter”
Now enter “active”, again “enter”
Now we need to make the format file system at NTFS flash drives formatting it using “format fs=NTFS” or for quick formatting enter “format fs=NTFS QUICK”, press “enter”
We are waiting for the completion of the formatting process
All is ready

We write “assign” and the flash drive will automatically receive a letter, for us it is J
Upon completion, a window with the flash drive will automatically open
Now we need to exit using the “Exit” command
That's it, the bootable USB flash drive has been created, now you need to copy all the files from the installation drive to it operating system

It’s just important to understand that it’s not the iso image that should be copied in one file, but all the folders that are included in this iso image. To do this, you just need to mount it with some program, for example DAEMON Tools.

That's all, we have looked at the question of how to create a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows 7 operating system.

We remind you that attempts to repeat the author’s actions may lead to loss of warranty on the equipment and even to its failure. The material is provided for informational purposes only. If you are going to reproduce the steps described below, we strongly advise you to carefully read the article to the end at least once. The editors of 3DNews do not bear any responsibility for any possible consequences.

During operation, the utility deploys the OS image (in fact, it stupidly unpacks the archive) directly to removable storage. This will turn out much faster, but at the first boot you will have to carry out the standard system setup procedure: select language options, time zone, create users and so on. And this is completely small fee for speed.

When you launch PWBoot (with administrator rights, of course), you will be prompted to either install a clean OS on a USB drive, or patch it already installed system, if you are going to transfer it to external drive. You will also have to “roll” the patch after installing service packs and, possibly, some Windows updates. Working with the program is incredibly simple, so there’s almost nothing to tell. Nevertheless, there are still a couple of nuances.

Firstly, PWBoot stubbornly refuses to work with Cyrillic. If your Windows 7 installation image supports the installation of several OS editions at once, then you need to select the one you need. How to do it? Using the ImageX utility (see above), launched with the info parameter and specifying the path to the wim file.

imagex /info x:\path\to\install.wim

In the command output, look for the Image Index item and the version description that follows it. In PWBoot, the versions appear in the selection list in the same order as they appear in the command output.

Secondly, there are two installation options to choose from - directly on external storage(with its mandatory formatting) or in virtual disk VHD format. The second option is much more interesting, but, unlike the first, it definitely requires Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise. More precisely, these editions support booting from VHD. In fact, there will be only one file on the disk in which all your work will take place. At the same time, in the OS loaded from the VHD, the physical disk will also be visible. Interestingly, the speed of the system inside the VHD is almost the same as when working directly from the drive.

In general, using VHD provides a lot of advantages. Firstly, any self-respecting person can work with this format. virtual machine, and its support is built right into Windows 7. You can regular means create, edit, mount VHD disks and work with differential images (in fact, diff for an entire disk). This gives rise to such possibilities as the presence of several Windows installations on one logical volume, easy rollback of changes to the system, convenience and speed of OS deployment on many PCs at once, and so on.

Let's return to PWBoot. At the next stage, you need to specify the location and name of the future VHD container. Naturally, it must be on external USB drive. Please note that the disk must have an NTFS file system (FAT32 is not suitable due to file size restrictions) and a sufficient number free space. The program itself will offer to make a disk minimum volume, but it’s better to allocate as much as you need for software, documents and everything else. A VHD disk can be made dynamic (expandable) by checking the appropriate box. That is, physically it will occupy exactly as much information as it contains. In general, to save space, you can enable this option, but at the same time lose a little in performance.

All that remains is to select the disk where the bootloader will be installed (that is, an external USB drive), check the Update bootcode and Add boot entry to BCD checkboxes, change the description of the item if desired boot menu and click Install. All, further actions The program will perform the installation itself. This usually takes no more than ten minutes, but a lot depends on the speed of the USB drive itself.

After installation, it is advisable to lighten the system a little - remove unnecessary components, disable non-critical services, turn off hard drive indexing, and generally try to avoid any operations associated with a heavy load on the drive. It is also useful to defragment the external drive by connecting it to another system. The problem with the paging file also remains unresolved - you can use the DiskMod driver to create it on a USB drive, you can abandon it altogether, but it’s better to manually set its location on the normal HDD of the machine on which ours is running portable Windows 7.

Volume C: is an HD container that is physically located on volume E:

Finally, it is worth mentioning an interesting development called VBoot. It is a bootloader based on GRUB, but with support for direct booting from VHDs. And it doesn’t have to be Windows. For example, on the website there is ready-made assemblies Ubuntu. In general, ready and convenient solution, but, of course, it’s paid - from $79 per license. By the way, Windows 8 will have a built-in ability to transfer your entire work environment to a USB drive and boot directly from it. In the meantime, you will have to be content with the above method. Good luck with your installation!

It is best to learn how to install the OS yourself, and there are a number of reasons for this: savings, the ability to do it at any time and not depend on anyone, anonymity and security (no one but you will touch your computer), etc. In this article you will learn how to install Windows 7 from a flash drive on a computer or laptop.

Burning windows to a flash drive

In order to burn an iso image of Windows 7 onto a flash drive, I use it and recommend it to everyone rufus program. It is the simplest, free, quickly and correctly records any system. I have already written about all the advantages of the utility. It is so simple that you don’t have to follow the link and study it, but download it right away - https://yadi.sk/d/DUW30yh93RLmZq

Preparing for installation

The correct installation is considered if you format drive “C”. This is extremely necessary for correct operation new system, and also using formatting to remove all viruses and useless and unnecessary files. As you already understood, before starting the installation, you need to move all the information you need to another drive so that you can erase everything from the “C” drive. If you have only one partition and there is nowhere to move it, or save important information to a flash drive.

Installing Windows 7 OS

All manuals on the Internet have a BIOS setup step, but we will do without it. Why touch it again if there is a way to get by.

After you have written Windows 7 to a USB flash drive and saved all the important information, insert USB drive and restart your laptop/computer. When starting the PC, you need to call the BOOT menu to select a flash drive to boot, and not HDD.

How to callBOOT menu:

Got it? Now while turning on the PC, call boot menu and select the flash drive with the system.

If all of the above was done correctly, and after choosing to load the flash drive, you will see this window:

This means that everything is fine, and you need to press any button once.

Select your native language and click “next”.

A simple point where you need to click “install” and proceed to the next installation step.

It's best to set it to maximum.

Check the box that you agree.

Full installation or update. We need to click “full”.

We choose the one we need HDD partition those. drive “C” and click disk settings.

Click “format”. (all information on it will be destroyed). We talked about this above.

Confirm formatting and click next.

The installation has started. Now it takes time (3-15 minutes) until the operating system is copied from the flash drive to your computer and installed.

12. Enter your name (nickname) and computer name and move on.

13. Set a password (if necessary), this is optional.

14. You must enter license key product. Click next and we'll talk about it below.

16. Set the date and time. To prevent the clock from getting lost after each reboot, set your time zone.

17. Set up your Internet connection. If your computer is at home, select 1 item.

All! Congratulations, you did it. Windows 7 has been successfully installed.

Installation completed. What's next?

Installing the operating system took you about 20 minutes, it would seem that’s all, but I have to disappoint you because... now you need to install everything else:

Drivers. If you still have disks that came with your computer/laptop, use them. If not, I recommend downloading the “DriverPack Solution” program and it will select everything itself necessary drivers and install them.
Download and install all the programs you need, including: browsers, flash player, directx, microsoft visual c++ and microsoft net framework.
Customize your computer for yourself. Create the necessary shortcuts on the desktop, change their scale (size) by holding ctrl and scrolling the mouse wheel, configure the video card (if necessary), and everything else.

Also, more than likely, you installed an unlicensed Windows, and of course you do not have an activation key. It's not scary, and you can activate it in 2 minutes. I wrote how to do this.

How to install OS from USB: Video

Results of the work done

Most of what was written above was not necessary, but for correct installation it is recommended to do this. As a result, you received a fully working computer that works like new without spending your savings on it. Now you can reinstall the OS yourself and configure it in less than an hour (this time is equal to the time you would have spent transporting it to a service center).

Do you have a laptop? Personal Computer or a tablet - in a word, a device on which you want to install Windows via a USB flash drive? Do you have to frequently reinstall the OS and don't want to use fragile and bulky disks?

If yes, then this guide is for you. Read the instructions below carefully and you will definitely succeed!

We can also say that a disk image is the same CD/DVD disk that does not have its own material shell.

Step 1. If you own an official copy of Windows OS, you can create bootable usb drive from the program Windows installations, supplied to DVD disc or use the official ISO file, which can be downloaded from the company’s website. You can also purchase an ISO distribution from other sources (download from any torrent tracker). In the last two cases, skip the following paragraphs in this section.

Step 2.. There are many available on the Internet free solutions, one of which is ImgBurn program- one of the most popular utilities.

Step 3. Insert the operating system disc into the DVD drive. Open the program and click on the “Copy to Image” or “Create Image” tab (in different versions program, the inscription may differ). When prompted, select the DVD drive as the source.

Step 4. Save the ISO file. Choose an easy-to-remember file name and location. Make sure you have enough free space to save the file. An ISO file is essentially an exact copy of the boot DVD.

Part 2: Creating a bootable USB flash drive

Step 1. Insert your flash drive into the appropriate slot on your computer. To successfully copy a disk image (ISO) file, the media size must be at least 4 GB.

Note! When created, all original data will be erased - create backup copy if there is important information.

Step 2. Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the official Windows website. Despite the name, the utility also works with other versions of the OS.

Step 3. Specify the path to ISO file- the location where you saved it at the last stage of creation.

Step 4. Click on the button USB Device" The program can also create boot disk, to do this, click on the “Disc” button.

Step 5. Wait until the download completes. The program will prepare the drive, then download the ISO file to it. Depending on the speed of your device, the copying process takes up to 15 minutes.

Part 3. Preparing the system

Insert the USB drive into your computer. Press the power button or restart your computer. During the reboot, click on the so-called “Setup key” - a key combination that is shown on the first system boot screens. Usually, this combination is located on the same screen on which the manufacturer's logo is displayed. The key varies from computer to computer, but in any case it will be on the screen. Once clicked, you will be taken to the BIOS menu.

Table of dependence of hot keys on the PC model at the time of booting
Click on the " Boot Menu" Each BIOS is different, but they all have this tab. You will see the order in which the computer searches for a bootable operating system. Typically, computers primarily do this with hard drive, so the OS boots automatically.
Once you go to the "Boot Menu", you will need to switch the order so that your USB drive is at the very top of the list. Again, exactly what this list looks like will vary depending on the make and model of the device. You may see the name of your drive, or perhaps it will just say “Removable Device” or “USB”. To change the order, use the “+” and “-” keys - up and down, respectively.
Afterwards, save the changes and exit the BIOS. The key to this action usually the F10 key. The computer will reboot from the USB drive.

Part 4: Installing Windows

Step 1. To begin initializing the installer, press any key. If you do nothing, the computer will automatically start loading the already installed operating system and you will have to reboot the system again.

Step 2. After pressing the key, the system will begin downloading data to install the operating system. On slow devices this process may take up to several minutes.

Step 3. Follow the installer's instructions. Once the installation is complete, the system will reboot.

Congratulations! You have installed Windows! Now you have a flash drive with which you can . Most new computers support installation from flash drives, use the special option BIOS boot as shown above.

Video - How to reinstall Windows from a flash drive via BIOS

Quite often there is a need to install a new operating system. This is still relevant now, given the fact that in mid-April this year Microsoft company officially announced the termination technical support Windows XP. It will still take no more than 3-4 years before all users completely switch to Windows 7. And if you want to know in advance how to install Windows 7 from a flash drive, then this article will give you the necessary information.

Installation takes place in several steps:

Preliminary preparation of the user's PC for installing Windows 7;
Preparing a USB flash drive for installing the operating system;
Preliminary BIOS setup for reading information directly from a flash drive;
OS installation via USB.

Let's take a closer look at each stage.

Preparing your computer for installation

Before installation new Windows 7 You need to prepare your computer first. First of all, the user is recommended to save all important information contained on the computer. It is worth paying attention to local disk C, since that is where it is stored greatest number information. Most users store some of their media files on the desktop or in the “My Documents” folder, which are located on the disk with the operating system installed. So as not to lose part important files, you need to copy them either to another local drive, or save them to USB or other digital media.

Another important point, which you should always remember: before installation, you need to check the availability of drivers for network card. If you install Windows 7 via USB, and then it turns out that the distribution did not have drivers for the network card, you will have neither the Internet nor the drivers. Therefore, play it safe once again and check the availability of drivers. And immediately check the presence of other drivers - for the video card, for the audio card, drivers for sound card and so on.

Preparing USB for installation

To prepare a USB flash drive for installing Windows 7, you need to follow these recommendations:

The volume of the flash drive should be at least 4 GB - this is exactly how much space will be needed to be able to install the OS without losing important files and components;
You will also need Windows distribution 7, which will be recorded and saved in *iso format (disc images);
A utility that will help you create a disk image. You can use almost any program (you can use UltraISO).

After you have installed and launched the image creation program on your computer, you need to select a disk image that has been previously prepared for recording. We will look at the recording using an example of use UltraISO programs– it is quite simple and understandable for all users.

A memory card or USB flash drive is connected to the computer, formatted and Windows 7 is written to it, which can then be installed on the computer via the same flash drive.

Setting up BIOS for installation

Is the flash drive ready for installation? There are a few steps left before actual installation. There is one important nuance: you need to “force” the computer to recognize the flash drive and allow you to install Windows 7 from the flash drive. And the BIOS will help in this matter. It is available on all computers, and in addition to many various functions, it allows you to change the boot order from external media.

The first thing you need to do is go into the BIOS. During the initial boot of the computer, you need to press a certain key (this is either F2, or Esc, or Delete). You will know that you have launched the BIOS when one of the screens appears in front of you:

The next step is to find a section through which you can configure the boot order from external devices. This section is called Boot, and it displays all devices that are connected to the computer in boot order (hard drive, CD/DVD media, USB port). Using the arrows on the keyboard, you need to make sure that the USB port is in first place in terms of relevance, and then press the F10 button, which saves the changes and restarts the computer. Now the computer is completely ready to install Windows 7 using a USB flash drive.

Installing Windows 7

After installing the flash drive into the port, a black screen and the message “Press any key” will appear. Press any button and the process will begin immediately automatic installation Windows 7.

You will see a welcome screen asking you to select your language, time format, time zone, and keyboard layout. Have you all chosen? Now click the “Next” button and immediately after that the “Install” button.

The installation program will prompt you to select a version of the operating system that will be suitable for you in terms of functionality. After making your selection, click “Next” again and agree to license terms and select the partition on which you want to install Windows 7. Have you chosen the partition? Now click the “Next” button and wait for the installation process via USB to complete.