How To Install Windows 8 From a USB Drive (pendrive)

Installing Windows 8 from a USB Drive is way more faster than installing it  using a DVD. Recently a new Windows 8 M1 7850 build has been released. A pretty good number of utilities are available that will help you make bootable usb drive to install windows 7 which also works for the new windows 8 build. Here is a small guide that will help you create a bootable USB / Pen drive to install Windows 8 operating system.

Requirements



# 1) Windows 8 Setup DVD or ISO File.


# 2) USB Drive with more that 4 GB Space available.


# 3) You must be using Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating system while following this guide.


# 4) Utility to mount iso files (if you are proceeding with the ISO file)
Installing Windows 8 From USB Drive

1) Connect your pendrive / usb drive to your pc and backup the data inside it.

2) Click the Start button and type CMD inside the search box. Right Click the cmd.exe icon and click on Run as Administrator. Windows command prompt will now open up.

3) Now inside the command prompt window type DISKPART and hit enter.

4)After seeing the following message (above) type LIST DISK and press enter. The command will help you find out the disk number of your plugged in usb drive.

 5)The Below image shows the usb drive being labelled as Disk 2 with the size shown as 14GB. It is actually my 16GB pendrive. This might be different in your case.

6)Now execute the following commands one by one. In the SELECT DISK 2 command the disk number is obtained from step 5.

SELECT DISK 2 


CLEAN


CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY


SELECT PARTITION 1


ACTIVE


FORMAT FS=NTFS 


ASSIGN


EXIT

The Format option might take some time to finish depending on the size of the flash drive.

7)Minimize the command prompt windows after the format process has been complete.

8)Next we need to update the USB drive with the bootmgr code for this, either  Mount the Windows 8 ISO file using a virtual disc utility (MagicDisc  is a good one) or Insert the Widows 8 setup DVD and note down the drive letter.

9)Bring up the command prompt window and type I:>CD BOOT (I is the DVD drive / virtual drive in my case).

10)Now finally execute I:boot>BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 K:

11)Close the Windows command prompt window and copy all the contents from widows 8 DVD or mounted virtual drive to the USB drive.

Note: For booting from your pendrive you need to enter the BIOS setup and enable the boot from Removable drive option (you may refer to the Mother board manual and check how to change the boot device priority).

After enabling the option to boot from removable drive, just plug in your USB drive and proceed with the windows 8 installation.