Creating Bootable Pen Drive Using Windows Command Prompt

Published on Feb 8, by Rishabh Tiwari 

Making a pen drive bootable is possible in Windows7 & Windows8 operating system. Formatting a computer to install fresh Windows OS with a CD/DVD drive is not very good because it takes too much time to install fresh Windows operating system. There can also be a problem for many people that CD/DVD drive doesn’t work properly. So this can be a problem for them. Today laptop or desktop comes many USB ports. So there is no need of CD/DVD drive to format a system. Formatting is very fast and easy with flash drive/pen drive and also no software is required for this method. Windows7 or Windows8 command prompt can do the work with few lines of command. Just follow this tutorial.
Start your command prompt.
 For windows7 users:
Go to “Start” button and click. Write “cmd” then cmd icon will appear on the top of the panel. (Fig.1)

Fig.1-Starting Windows CMD

“Right click” on the cmd icon and click “Run as administrator”. (Fig.2)

Fig.2-Running Command Prompt As Administrative

It will open the command prompt. (Fig.3)

Fig.3-Windows 7 CMD Window Pops Up

For windows 8 users:
Press “Windows key” and press “c”. You will see the command prompt icon. “Right click” on the command prompt icon and click “Run as administrator” from the bottom bar. (Fig.4)

Fig.4-Windows 8 CMD Window Pops Up

It will open the command prompt like in Fig.3
Now following steps are same for the windows7 and 8 OS.
Type “diskpart” inside the command prompt and hit “ENTER”. (Fig.5)

Fig.5-Type diskpart And Enter

It will good before going to next step that you should disconnect all other external hard disk, flash/pen drive etc. because accidently these drive can be formatted. So taking precaution is good. Only one pen drive with minimum 4 GB should be connected. Save all the data from the pen drive because it will be formatted in one of the following step.
After last step type “list disk” inside the command prompt and hit “ENTER”. (Fig.6)

Fig.6-Type list Disk And Enter

This will show all disk connected to the system like DISK 0, Disk 1, and so on with “Status”, “Size” , “Free” etc.. We can recognize the pen drive with size. Disk 0 will be the system disk in which the windows OS is installed. In this tutorial Disk 1 is the pen drive (3855MB=4GB). This pen drive is going to be a bootable pen drive.
Type “select disk 1” inside the command prompt and hit “ENTER”. It will select the disk 1 (pen drive) for all coming steps. (Fig.7)

Fig.7-Type select Disk 1 And Enter

Type “clean” and hit “ENTER”. It will erase all the data from the pen drive. (Fig.8)

Fig.8-Type clean And Enter

Type “create partition primary” and hit “ENTER”. It will create a primary partition in pen drive. (Fig.9)

Fig.9-Type create partition primary And Enter

Type “select partition 1” and hit “ENTER”. It will select the partition created in the last step. (Fig.10)

Fig.10-Type select partition 1 And Enter

Type “format=fs ntfs quick” and hit “ENTER”. It will format the pen drive quickly with NTFS file type. (Fig.11)

Fig.11-Type format=fs quick And Enter

Type “active” and hit “ENTER”. It will make partition as active for booting after restarting the computer. If this is step is missed then computer will not boot from the pen drive. (Fig.12)

Fig.12-Type active And Enter

Type “exit ” and hit “ENTER” to close the diskpart and close the command prompt window. (Fig.13)

Fig.13-Type exit And Enter

Now the pen drive has become bootable. Now all the files from root of Windows operating system setup DVD or ISO has to copy inside the pen drive root.
So open the Windows setup file from DVD or ISO and copy all file by selecting with “Ctrl+A” and paste it inside the pen drive’s root folder as shown in the figure. (Fig.14)

Fig.14-Copying All Files And Pasting It

After complete copy, the pen drive will be a bootable for Windows 7 and Windows 8 OS completely. You just need to “Restart” your computer. “Restart” your computer. When BIOS screen appears then press “F12” key. It will show the options to boot from CD/DVD drive, hard disk and pen drive. Just scroll down to pen drive and hit “Enter”. Your system will boot from pen drive. Now you can install windows OS.
That’s it.
Enjoy…