Install Windows 7 Using USB Thumb Drive

At present, many people are prefer to use a small notebook that has the size of 10 inch screen display. With its low price to buy and has the small size together with its light weight, the small notebook has become the choice to many computer users. With the features that I described, we can say that the small notebook is easy to bring anywhere.

But, one disadvantage of the small notebook is, it does not equipped with the CD/DVD ROM drive. This downside caused the users of small notebook cannot display the contents inside the CD or DVD disk. Also, the downside caused the problem to perform installation of Windows 7 using the DVD disk.

Fortunately, we can use a USB thumb drive to install Windows 7 in a small notebook. But before we can install Windows 7 into the small notebook using a USB thumb drive, we must copy all setup files for Windows 7 reside in DVD disk into the USB thumb drive.

The procedures to copy the setup files for Windows 7 into the USB thumb drive will discussed in this article. 

What You Need

1. If you use Windows XP in your computer system, you must download and install the Diskpart program into it.
   
   
2. The setup DVD disk of Windows 7.  
   
   
3. The USB thumb drive. Make sure it empty  and its size can accommodate the contents of Windows 7 setup DVD disk. In general, you need 4 GB or above
   
   
4. Your computer system. It must have CD/DVD ROM drive. 
   
   

The Procedures

1. Attach the USB thumb drive into the USB port of your computer system.  
    
2. Press to open the Run dialog box --> type cmd in the Open: text box –-> click OK and Windows command-line interface will appears on your screen 
    
3. On Windows command-line interface, type diskpart –-> press to launch the Diskpart.exe program like a picture below:

   

4. Type list disk to display the current information of your hard disks. The USB thumb drive should be in the list as the Disk 1
   
   
5. Type the words as listed below in sequence (top-down), and don’t forget to press after you type each of these words
   
   select disk 1     Your thumb drive will be selected 
   clean    The data in your thumb drive will be deleted 
   create partition primary    The partition will be created
   active    The partition will be activated 
   format fs=ntfs quick    Setting up the NTFS file system 
   assign letter=<USB thumb drive letter>   For example is d: for the drive letter.
   exit    Exit diskpart.exe program
   
   When you finish perform this step, it means the USB thumb drive has been prepared and you are ready to perform the next steps.
   
   
6. Minimized Windows command-line interface BUT do not close it.
   
   
7. Insert the setup DVD disk of Windows 7 into CD/DVD ROM drive of your computer system –-> maximized back Windows command-line interface that you minimized in step 6. 
   
   
8. On Windows command-line interface, type the words as listed below in sequence (top-down), and don’t forget to press after you type each of these words
   
   CD/DVD ROM drive letter    E: for example. Check the CD/DVD ROM drive letter in My Computer.    
   cd boot    To enter the directory or folder named boot 
   bootsect.exe /nt60 <USB thumb drive letter> apply master boot record to the USB thumb drive. For the USB thumb drive letter, type d: for example. 
   exit    close the command-line interface
   
   
9. Please SELECT ALL ITEMS from setup DVD disk of Windows 7 by press --> copy and paste it into the USB thumb drive. 
   
   
10. Now you are ready to install Windows 7 into a small notebook with the USB thumb drive as the replacement of Windows 7 DVD disk .