Not so much time has passed since the introduction of USB flash drives on the IT products market. Having abandoned the "optical dependence", practical users, and in droves, switched to compact and highly efficient storage devices - flash drives. However, few of you, dear readers, know that a Flash drive can be used as a removable disk with the operating environment preinstalled on it, for example, the seventh version from Microsoft. What is needed to implement a portable project? You wonāt believe it, but just one program to burn Windows 7 to a USB flash drive. What kind of software are you talking about, you will learn from the material in this article. However, you will know how to use it. Yes, by the way, a pleasant surprise awaits readers who notice a double meaning in the headline: you will surely find answers to your questions. Detailed instructions and practical recommendations are waiting for you!
Usability System: Compact USB Windows
It is human nature to simplify oneās life. And in our age of speed and technological achievement, this is especially tangible. Thanks to the compact flash drive, the process of storing and exchanging data has become much more comfortable than when using a CD / DVD-ROM. Some modern modifications to USB flash drives can have quite serious capacitive memory potential. In our case, to āputā Windows 7 on a USB flash drive, an 8-gigabyte reserve is enough. After you create a portable version of the OS, you can work on any computer in your usual environment. Moreover, the settings, parameters and software you need will become available (in terms of use) just a few minutes after you insert the Flash drive into the USB port of the computing device.
A flash drive operating system: a phased action plan
Before you begin to directly follow the instructions for setting up and installing the operating system on a USB storage device, familiarize yourself with some of the technical requirements:
- Using a flash drive with specification 3.0 is recommended. Since in our case, the speed of data exchange is a very important indicator.
- The required disk space is at least 8 GB. If you are going to use additional software, then the disk capacity should be much larger.
Step No. 1: Download and launch special software
So, to install the OS on a USB drive, you need the appropriate program to write Windows 7 to a USB flash drive and the operating system distribution itself. The ideal assistant in this situation will be the free PWBoot application. Despite the fact that the utility has an English-language interface, the process of working with the program is not at all complicated. This software tool does not need to be installed, and therefore it is ready to work immediately after you activate it.
Step No. 2: Working with the program and installing the distribution kit
- In the initial window of the utility, check the first Install Windows item - click Next.
- After you click on the Browse button, you must specify the path to the Install.wim file, which is stored in the Sources folder. As you understand, at the initial stage, the OS distribution must be unpacked or downloaded to a virtual disk (Daemon Tools).
- In the checkbox below, select the desired system edition. Since the described program for writing Windows 7 to a USB flash drive does not support the Cyrillic alphabet, there is a high probability of error when performing the next paragraph. Therefore, be extremely careful!
- Specify the flash media as the data receiver and click Next again.
- In the System boot volume checkbox, select the USB drive again.
- After you check all the boxes, activate the Install button.
After a short recording process and a Finish service message, your removable flash drive will be ready to use.
As a complement
Using the same PWBoot utility, you can install Windows on a USB flash drive in another way - create a virtual disk in VHD format. This method, without a doubt, will be in demand by users who in the future provide for the use of a large number of programs or want to ādeliverā a voluminous assembly of the OS with the subsequent ability to work with data located on the physical disk of the computer. The method that is difficult to perceive at first glance is actually implemented quite simply. Using the tools integrated into the OS, you need to create a virtual hard disk. Next, using the same PWBoot, install the Windows distribution on a USB flash drive. The only ābutā: this method is only suitable for Ultimate or Enterprise OS editions.
Optimization of the "portable system"
Even if you are using a flash drive that supports the USB 3.0 specification, it is unlikely that you will be satisfied with the fast performance of a flash system. Therefore, it is necessary to make the OS as easy as possible: disable non-critical Windows services, remove unused system components, and so on. The swap file issue can be resolved as follows:
- Allocate the necessary disk space on the physical hard drive of the computer you are using.
- Use the special software solution DiskMode.
In general, after you manage to install Windows 7 on a USB flash drive, perform the full process of optimizing it.
Multiboot USB flash drive: promised understatement
If at some point your OS stopped starting or another type of emergency occurred, then you can hardly do without āsavingā software tools. At the same time, one should not forget that with the help of the same USB-drive, it is possible to carry out a comfortable process of restoring a failed Windows-system or to perform, as they say, a clean installation of the required OS edition. Well, first things first.
How to make Live USB
By the above name, it should be understood that this is not only a full-fledged mini-operating system on a flash drive, but also a number of different diagnostic and recovery tools that are integrated into the boot environment. In order to create a multiboot USB drive, you will need: the MultiBoot USB utility, the necessary Windows distributions and, if desired, the installation files for additional software.
Launch and work with the program
- Click on the installation EXE file.
- After the MultiBoot USB menu appears on the screen, select the first item of the Hp Usb Disk Storage Format Tool.
- After you format the disk space of the Flash drive, close the utility window.
- Now click on the Grub4dos Installer link.
- Check the Disk checkbox in the bootloader window, your removable drive should be displayed in the Refresh field - click Install.
- After the message in the command editor successfully ... - use the Enter key.
- Exit the bootloader - Quit.
- Activate the WinsetupFriomUsb item.
- Now you need to āuploadā the Windows 7 distribution kit to the USB flash drive.
- In the marked checkbox Win / 7 / Server 2008 specify the installation ISO-file of the operating system.
- The final action is to press the GO button.
If you want to install additional programs and recovery utilities, then use the current assembly Alkid.live.cd.
The integration process of the above software package
After you have downloaded the Alkid.live.cd image to your computerās hard drive, mount it using DaemonTool to one of the virtual drives.
- Copy the unzipped files to the root of the USB drive.
- The folder named A386 must be renamed to minint.
- After that, from its directory to the root of the Flash media, you need to copy the NTDETECT file.
- The next stage, so to speak, is creative. Using a standard Windows notepad, open the menu.lst file located in the root of the disk.
- Make the following entry: title Alkid Live (without SCSI / RAID)
find --set-root /minint/setuplns.bin
chainloader /minint/setuplns.bin
title Alkid Live
find --set-root /minint/setupldr.bin
chainloader /minint/setupldr.bin. - Save the changes and exit the text editor.
So, you not only installed Windows 7 on a USB flash drive, but also created a full recovery Flash drive.
The most comfortable tool for reinstalling the seventh OS
If the user urgently needs to make a bootable USB-drive with the Windows 7 distribution kit, and there is no desire to "bother" with the multi-faceted multimedia script of the MultiBoot USB program, then you can use the incredibly simple method, which will be discussed later.
Rufus is the most correctly working utility.
- Download and run the above software.
- The program automatically detects a removable drive inserted into the USB-connector.
- If this does not happen, indicate the path to the Flash storage device.
- Next to the āISO imageā checkbox, activate the disk button.
- Specify the directory where the OS distribution is located.
- Then feel free to click on the "Start" button.
This program for writing Windows 7 to a USB flash drive does an excellent job of its task. However, the functionality of this application can be used for other versions of Microsoft OS, including the new "eight".
Before you finish: new WTG technology in action
Perhaps some of you, dear readers, are thinking about how to ātransferā to the new Windows 8 operating system. But it is in this OS that a new opportunity has appeared to create an OS image specifically for USB drives. In other words, now G8 owners can use standard Windows tools to create bootable Flash media with the necessary set of programs. However, the capacity of the USB drive must be at least 32 GB.
How it works
- Press the key combination Win + W and in the search box, enter Windows To Go.
- After activating the found service, a special setup wizard will be launched.
- In the primary window, you must select the USB-drive, on which the system image will be installed.
- Next, you will need to specify the image directory, which should have the WIM extension.
The following steps in the wizard are simple to primitive, therefore they do not need a description. Any user can easily cope with such a task.
Finally
We hope that the question that interests you is: "How to burn the Windows 7 image to a USB flash drive?" exhausted. Of course, the article includes only the most common, and at the same time the most reliable methods, in the implementation of which almost any USB-drive can be used as the main loader of the operating system. However, on the Web you are sure to come across more than a dozen of these kinds of solutions. Whether it is advisable to use them, you decide. After all, the choice is always yours. Well, let's hope you succeed. All the best to you and remember: you canāt overload the flash drive!