How to Create Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows Vista?

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This tutorial will help you in creating a bootable USB drive of Windows Vista which you can use to install Vista in any system. It might become very useful when you don't have access to DVD drive.

1. First format your USB drive in NTFS file system. You can do it by attaching your USB drive to your system and then format it from My Computer window.

2. Now open Command Prompt window from Start menu. Right-click on Command Prompt entry in start menu and select "Run as administrator" option.

3. Now type diskpart in Command Prompt window and press Enter. It'll launch DiskPart program:

4. Now provide following command:

list volume

It'll show a list of all drives in your system. Look for your USB drive entry. As in the below screenshot, the USB drive is "G" which you can determine from its "Type" entry.

Now you have to select the USB drive volume by providing select volume no. command. Since in our case volume no. of USB drive is "Volume 4", the command would be:

select volume 4

Now we have to make this drive active. So provide active command:

active

Now exit from DiskPart using exit command.

5. Now we need to create Boot sector on USB drive. We'll use "bootsect.exe" utility for this task. You can find this utility in Windows Vista setup disk. It'll be present in "Boot" directory.

Now provide following command in Command Prompt:

bootsect /nt60 G:

Here G is drive letter of USB drive. Replace it with the correct drive letter if your system has some other letter for USB drive.

6. At last, copy all files/folders from Vista Setup DVD to your USB drive and you have done.

Now you can boot using your USB drive and can install Windows Vista in any system.

PS: You can also take a look at some free tools to automatically create bootable USB drives to install Windows using following link:

Ultimate Collection of Best Freeware to Create Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows and Linux

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This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows Vista.

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VG

^^ Do you get any error message after trying Active command?
Zack Sayed

Active command will only work on Vista. Not meant for XP.

So try using some Vista OS
Björn Johansson

Works also with Windows 7 build 6801 :)
Satyendra

Same here
got error when "active" the selected volume
any solution bro????
CytoxX

Hi VG,

I think (correct me if i am wrong) i need to have some kind of a boot sector to boot from an iso image right? the thing is that i bought a VMware workstation together with some friends.. and i dont wanna boot from dvd but i wanna make a bootable ISO image of my vista dvd. how am i going to do that? may this be the thing i need?

-CytoxX
NJJ1122

Hi,
You can do the following to setup the USB Flash Drive to be bootable.

Step1:
Format the USB drive in Disk Management, and make sure you select NTFS.
- Right-click My Computer >> Manage >> Select Disk Management in the MMC >> Find the drive >> Right-click and select format.
- This can also be done with Diskpart, but it's easier through Disk Management.

Step2:
- Make sure that the drive is completely formatted (Explore to the drive through My Computer).
- Use Diskpart to make partition as active.
- Start >> Run >> CMD >> Diskpart

Diskpart:
Diskpart>List Volume
Diskpart>select volume 2 (This will be the volume for the flash drive
Diskpart>List Disk
Diskpart>select Disk 3 (USB Flash Drive)
Diskpart>list partition
Diskpart>Select partition 1
Diskpart>Active

Step3:
- Copy the boot folder from the Vista CD to the C: drive.
- From the command prompt (start >> run >> cmd), run the following command:
cd c:\boot (You will be in the boot directory)
bootsect /nt60 G: (G: drive is the USB drive)
loverdon

hey can any1 tel me how to solve the active problem!! i tried cornel's disk method but it shows only 1 disk the hard disk...

pliz email me if som1 knows the solution

arshednadeem@gmail.com
odzk

same here, problem with the "active", i think this tutorial is not working for most of us.
aishu aka samurai

Here is the solution
Open my computer, right click your usb pen drive, goto properties, select hardware tab, select "USB DRIVE" click properties, goto policies tab, choose "optimize for performance tab, click ok and again ok. thats it dude now u can format it to NTFS by just right click on it from my computer, then format and u will see NTFS option :)
Someone

How much space do you need to install it?