2/20/2015

Guide:HowtoinstallWindows10fromaUSBdrive

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Guide: How to install Windows 10 from a

USB drive

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By Andrew Stevenson Oct 2, 2014 HOT!

90

NEWS
If, like us, you have downloaded the Technical Preview for Windows 10, youll be itching to
try it. But how do you install it from the ISO youve just downloaded? Well, read on and
FEATURES
find out.
Historically, whether you copied Windows 98 to a directory on your C: drive from DOS
FORUMS
called win98.src and installed from there, or created a USB boot of Windows 8 direct from
the medias installer, its possible to install the Windows OS from a number of mediums.
MORE
So today, what were going to do is show you how to take an 8GB USB disk (4GB can be
used for the 32bit edition), prep it for installing Windows 10, transferring the files to it and
booting from it. While not a new process, well try to cover as much as possible, just to
give you a bit of flexibility when going through this process.
First, lets prep the USB pen. For this, weve used a generic USB2 disk and are currently
doing this on a Windows 8.1 Pro client. We're using the 64bit Technical Preview. Plug it in
to your desktop/laptop and lets get started! Oh, and be prepared to lose any data on the
USB disk, so back it up first if necessary.
1. Open a command prompt window as an administrator
a. Click/press Start, type CMD, right click on the (likely) first result and choose Run
as administrator
2. In the command prompt window, type diskpart and press enter

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3.

4. Once at the diskpart command prompt, type list disk and press enter

a. You will see a DOS format table listing your available disks.
b. Make sure you know what disk is the USB. We know due to the size (7633MB)
and that its not highlighted as a Gpt disk/partition.
5. At the diskpart command prompt, type select disk 2 and press enter

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a. Replace our disk number with yours.

6. At the diskpart command prompt, type clean and press enter.

7. At the diskpart command prompt, type create partition primary and press enter.

8. At the diskpart command prompt, type format fs=ntfs quick and press enter.
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9. At the diskpart command prompt, type active and press enter.

10. At the diskpart command prompt, type assign and press enter.

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a. This assigns the next/first available drive letter for the USB disk.
11. At the diskpart command prompt, type list volume and press enter.

a. This is how you can confirm the drive letter assigned to the USB disk, in our
case F
12. At the diskpart command prompt, type exit and press enter, but dont exit the
command prompt
At this point weve prepped the USB disk for the Windows 10 files and folders. But we
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need to copy the files to the USB disk. Depending on what OS youre performing this on
(XP, Vista, 7 or 8/8.1) the process will differ slightly. As were on Windows 8.1, well detail
that process, with additional info thrown in for good measure.
1. Download the Windows 10 Tech Preview if you havent already
a. 32bit is here
b. 64bit is here
2. Browse to the downloaded ISO in Windows Explorer, right click the file and choose
Mount

a. Once mounted, it should open in Explorer automatically (D drive in our case)

b. If not, just browse, using Explorer, to your USB disk (again ours is F)
3. Select all files/folders using the mouse or CTRL+A , right click on the highlighted area
and choose Copy (or CTRL+C)

a. You can also choose Send to and then your Removable Disk
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i. If you chose to send to the USB disk, skip to step 5

4. Open you (empty) USB disk in Explorer and right click the white space and choose
Paste (or CTRL+V)

5. Wait for the process to finish and close all Explorer windows once done (youre at the
mercy of the speed rating on the USB disk were afraid).
If you dont have Windows 8/8.1 to mount an ISO, WinRAR will extract contents of an ISO
to any location, or you could use a third party tool to mount the ISO(s) like Daemon Tools.
Whatever way you can, or know how to, take the ISO contents and place it on your USB
disk will be fine.
The next thing for you to do is to modify the USB disk for booting. Up until now, its still
only a non-bootable USB Windows 10 installer.
1. Go back to the command prompt window you shouldnt have closed
2. Type the following command - d:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 f: and press return

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a. Ensure you replace the d: and f: drive letters with your mounted ISO media and
USB disk respectively
3. Type exit to close the command prompt window
All that you need to do now is remove the USB media from your computer, plug it into the
device you wish to test Windows 10 on, and boot from it. With a bit of luck, youll see
something like the image below on screen!

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The above processes will work to create any Windows USB install media, from Vista right
up to Windows 10. So if youre still clinging onto Windows 7 SP1, use this guide to create
your USB media.
Hopefully the longest process will have been the downloading and/or the copying of the
ISO and its files to the media. While we know how to run through the process quite
quickly, prepping the media from the command line should take no more than 5 minutes.
One final thing to note is that if you want to remove Windows 10 from the media and put
Windows 7 or 8.1 on there, plug the USB media into the computer where you have 7 or
8.1 media (DVD, ISO, etc), delete all the files/folders from said USB media using Windows
Explorer, and copy the 7 or 8.1 files/folders from the ISO or DVD to the USB disk. Simple!
As always folks, feedback is much appreciated.
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