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.
Thanks to Dave Glover for this info...
This article was posted in Windows Vista.
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Someone
How much space do you need to install it?
Lau
Thanks! This guide also works fine with Windows 7 (beta).
Just installed my Asus EeePC with Windows 7 from a USB memory stick in 20 minutes.
DanDawN
@NJJ1122:
Hey bro, my USB didn't show in the disk list (list Disk), only my harddisk showed up. I'm using Xp SP3.
Luke
Hey VG i followed your instructions and it all worked except when i try and boot from it it says bootmgr is missing, have i done something wrong? thanks in advance.
Tobias
Hello DanDawN#
I have the same problem on my Win SP3 laptop, so i took my sisters laptop with Windows Vista (Bah...) and tried there, and there was my usb flash disk on the list...
So, maybe supporting diskpart not usb flash disks in WinXP..
Sorry, but my english is not the best...
But i hope it can help you with your problem.
Tobias
Hello DanDawN#
After a research i find this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0FD9788A-5D64-4F57-949F-EF62DE7AB1AE
Tis is DiskPart, and i think it will fix you problem in Windows XP.
// Exetico - Tobias
rix
Done !
Turorial works perfectly on windows XP pro sp3. only problem was with bootsect . but i manage to fix this 
charlie
tried this several times with two usb keys, when I'm in diskpart after selecting the volume I can't set the partition as active. any help? tried this on two computers with xp installed, no computers here with vista...
charlie
to be extra clear: after selecting the volume I type "active" and it responds that there's no partition selected. but when I type the "list disk" command only hard drives show up in the list, not the usb key.
rix
as far as i know , you have to make you usb bootable and OS must read usb key as " Local disk " . Then it will appear under volume selection as well. At least i did so ...