Creating a Windows 10 Bootable USB drive is an easy task, once you know, how to do it? In this tutorial, we will use two different methods to create a Windows 10 Bootable USB Flash Drive. The first method is using Windows Media Creation Tool, and the second method consist of using an Elevated Command Prompt.
To create a Windows 10 Bootable USB Drive, using Windows Media Creation Tool, first you need to download Media Creation Tool from Microsoft website. To do this, click the link in the description, and download the Windows Media Creation Tool. The good thing about this tool is that, it will not just help you to download Windows 10 ISO file, but is also able to create a Bootable USB flash drive for Windows 10, for the users who are not so expert using Command Line options, and other third party utilities.
Once the download is complete, run the Media Creation Tool. You will be asked, either you want to upgrade your current operating system to Windows 10, or want to create installation media for another PC. Select “Create Installation Media for Another PC”, and then click Next. Choose Language, Edition, and Architecture, and then click Next. Be careful about, choosing the right Edition for which you have brought the license, and either you want to download a 32 bit or 64 bit edition, or both. After choosing the appropriate options, click the Next button, and then you will be asked, either you want to create USB flash drive, or want to download an ISO image separately, which you can later burn on a DVD. Select USB flash drive, and then click next. You will see all the connected USB drives. Select a drive that you want to use and create as Windows 10 Bootable Drive, and then click Next. It will then start downloading all the required files from Microsoft server, and once the downloading is complete, this tool will then automatically prepare your USB drive as Windows 10 Bootable Setup Media.
The second method to create a Windows 10 Bootable USB drive is to use Command Line tools. Surprisingly, method to create a bootable USB drive for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10, using the elevated command prompt is completely same. What you only need change is to, copy the specific operating system files to the USB drive, and it will become a bootable USB drive of that particular operating system. Means, after completing all the tasks, in the end, if you copy the files of Windows 7, then it will become a Windows 7 Bootable USB, and if you copy the files of Windows 10, then it will become Windows 10 USB Bootable Drive.
Using command line tools to create a Windows 10 Bootable USB drive is useful in many ways. Using Command Line tools, you can create a Bootable USB drive anytime when required, without the help of any other tool. Secondly, if you have already download Windows ISO image, and later you decide to create a Bootable USB drive, then Windows Media Creation Tool will not help. You cannot use a pre-downloaded ISO image with Media Creation Tool to create a Bootable USB drive. Media Creation Tool always starts from fresh.
So for command line tool, we are assuming that you already have a Windows 10 ISO image available, and what you only need is a bootable USB media, where you can copy files from ISO image.
So, let’s start! Open an elevated command prompt, by right-clicking on Start button, and choose Command Prompt Admin. Press Yes for User Account Control.
Plug-in your USB drive into USB port. Insert your Windows 10 installation media, or mount an ISO image, if you have one.
Now, you need to run Command Prompt, with Administrative Privilege. To do this, click Start button, type CMD in search box, right-click on Command Prompt, and then click Run As Administrator. Once you are on command prompt, type DISKPART, and press Enter. Windows will load the Diskpart application, and you can notice that prompt sign now has changed to DISKPART.
First we need to check, which drives are currently connected and can be used with DISKPART. To do this, type, LIST DISK, and press Enter key. DiskPart will show you all the available drives. Note that, DISKPART will display all the connected drives, either they are Hard Disk Drives, or Removable Devices. Be sure to perform the next step carefully, because to create a bootable USB drive, you will perform format and clean command on the selected disk. Make sure to choose the right disk.
As the list is showing 2 drives, our USB flash drive is on number 1, which we can identify from the size of the disk. So, our next command will used to select the disk, on which we will perform some tasks, to make it bootable.
Type, SELECT DISK, and then, the Disk Number, which is in our case is number 1, and then press Enter Key. A message will appear, notifying you about which disk is being selected.
Now, we need to remove the previous partition table from the disk. To do this, type CLEAN, and press ENTER key. If any error occurs, then you can run the CLEAN command again. A message will appear, indicating that the disk has been successfully cleaned up.
Now, we need to create a partition on the disk. Type, CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY, and press Enter key. After the successful creation of Primary Partition, select the partition by typing, SELECT PARTITION 1. As it is a new partition, you need to format it with a file system, so you may able to use it. Type, FORMAT FS=NTFS Quick and press Enter Key. You must use the Quick switch with the format command, else it may take longer to format the disk. Once it is formatted, type ACTIVE, to make the current Primary partition as Active Partition, and then type ASSIGN, and press Enter key, to assign a drive letter to the new partition. Type EXIT, to quit from DISKPART utility, but do not close the command prompt yet.
Open Windows Explorer, and note down the drive letters of both media, like we now currently have, Drive J as DVD media, and Drive K as USB Media.
Go back to the command prompt, and the last step is to create Boot Sector file on the USB drive, which can be done through BOOTSECT command, and that is available on your Windows 10 DVD media. Now, you need to move to the BOOT directory, to run BOOTSECT command, which is available on your Windows 10 DVD. To do this, type J colon, which is the drive letter of our DVD media, and press Enter Key. Here, type CD BOOT, and press Enter key. Now, type BOOTSECT /NT60 K:, and press Enter key. Drive K is the letter that windows has assigned to our USB drive. Type EXIT and press Enter key to close the command prompt. Open your DVD drive, select all the files, and send them, or copy them to your USB media. That is all. You are done creating a new Bootable USB Flash Drive. What you need to do now is to, change the boot order within from BIOS, to tell your PC to boot from USB Flash Drive first.
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