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

Other similar articles that may interest you:

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

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shashianandrja

its make me very impressive thank you sir
Jahanzeb

Hey Vishal Nice Effort

but i'm having an issue

Says:

"There is no partition Selected
Please Select a Partition and Try again"

what is this All about??

hoping you reply Soon

thanks
Xebii
niranjan

hiii vishal
i like your articles. But more of them also not work. As you have given for bootable usb, this also not work in last step. when i try last creating boot sector. its say as acces is denied and the whole satement is as
"Target volume will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.
could not map drive partition to the associated volume device objects:
Access is denied".

anyway Vishal and you have also provided another option as Windows 7 usb DVD tool. That is also not work and demand for standard iso format.
okay
Mani Konar

How to use 4gb transcend ntfs pendrive has a bootable dirve to install window xp .please help me i need it urgent becauz i not have cd rom or writer ....
kamal zafar

thanx man..
but there is problem that after selecting volume when we exexute active command it says that NO partition is selected what can i do man pls help me out???????????????????????
kamal zafar

thanx man..
but there is problem that after selecting volume when we exexute active command it says that NO partition is selected what can i do man pls help me out???????????????????????
kamal zafar

thanx man..
but there is problem that after selecting volume when we exexute active command it says that NO partition is selected what can i do man pls help me out???????????????????????
Ashish

Hello!! Can anybody help me.
If u really want 2 help me then i am unable 2 make a pen drive bootable. So, if u have software 2 make pendrive bootable then plz send me on my e-mail id. PLZZZZ HELP ME
DILSHAD

i have problem !wat ever u tell the prossess to make usb bootable ,i did it but after coping vista dvd file i restat my computer get in bios seting and try to change the first booting secter with pen drive ,but there is no pen drive hardware shown .so how can i farmat .
Imran

I have a problem with this, i have done all step but in last when i run bootsect command it says:
could not map drives partition to the associated volume device object:
access is denied.

plz help
thanks