When the time comes to reinstall or upgrade Windows, an issue can arise: Where does that setup DVD go? The answer: On a flash drive. Find out the different ways to get Windows XP through Windows 10 onto a bootable flash drive — and enjoy the speed benefits that come with it. Instead, it prefered to stick to old-school DVD media, despite the fact that many notebooks today are too small to even include an optical drive, and many DIYers are building PCs which forego one on purpose. However, things have moved on, and for the first time, Microsoft has begun to sell. Previous versions of the OS XP, 7 and 8. Creating a bootable Windows USB drive used to be a chore, but today, one solution can pretty-well suit most people. However, there are times when a flash drive has some quirk that prevents it from working with a particular solution, so for that reason, this article takes a look at five different methods. Admittedly, the time and effort of creating the drive might make it best-suited for system builders, but for people like us, who juggle test machines, USB is a no-brainer. To start, USB media is more durable than disc-based media. Discs can be easily scratched, while well-built USB flash drives can generally handle a bit of abuse. Ever walk around with a disc in your pocket? It looks a bit odd. For starters, modern UEFI-equipped machines are not designed to support such an old OS, so chances are that it will not even install, or even be detected in the first place. If the motherboard in question happens to support a legacy BIOS mode, then it might work. Different version of Rufus explained later have better luck with the XP process than others. We strongly suggest you skip to the dedicated part of this article that explains the problems with. What about Windows Vista? But first… Acquiring a Disc Image ISO Some solutions listed on this page require a Windows disc image. ISOs are available from a number of sources, but most people will acquire them after purchasing the OS online through Microsoft, or through some other related Microsoft service. Only the ISOs directly supplied by Microsoft would have static hashes. How the image was captured as well will have an effect on how the final boot drive turns out, so stick to official sources where possible. For those who have a Windows setup DVD, a free tool like CDBurnerXP or ImgBurn can be used to rip it into an. Other tools exist that accomplish the same thing, but these are the only ones we can personally recommend. However, we prefer Rufus because we find it loads a lot quicker, and feels a bit faster, too. For a great many reasons, this is still our preferred method of creating USB boot drives. For Windows XP, select MBR Partition only. To load the Windows. NOTE: As the program will state, doing this will erase all data off of the flash drive — so backup first. If you have any issues, be sure to check out our section below. NOTE: This method will delete the entire flash drive, so be sure to back up personal data first. Once selected, it needs to be wiped clean, have a partition created, and then be formatted. While the company no longer promotes the tool, it supports at least 7 and 8 just fine, so some might prefer to use it over the other solutions. Once and opened, an ISO must be chosen. Using Windows 10 Media Creation Tool If you plan to install Windows 10 on a new system, use it to recover an existing system, or upgrade a previous install of Windows 7 or 8, creating a bootable flash drive is the first step. Windows 10 is the first Microsoft OS that not only natively supports USB installs, but encourages it and even. The whole process for creating a Windows 10 bootable USB drive can be done by using the ; most systems these days will use the 64-bit version, so grab that. The gallery below outlines each step of the process for the basic method. There are a few things you might need to check first. Depending on where you plan to install Windows 10, you need to check which version you require, Home or Pro. NOTE: The contents of the USB flash drive will be erased, so make sure you back it up first. If everything when according to plan, the Media Creation Tool will declare success and you are ready to use your new Windows 10 bootable USB drive. The Media Creation Tool can can be used to just download the ISO image of Windows 10, which can then be used with something like Rufus to create the bootable USB drive. This offers the advantage of being able to keep a backup of the ISO image, as well as create multiple boot drives without having to download the image each time. If you run into problems with the Media Creation Tool when it comes to creating the bootable flash drive, you can use the following method. In general, we found this method more reliable than using the Media Creation Tool to create the Windows 10 bootable flash drive, and ther are a number of other advantages to using Rufus as well. NOTE: When you let the Media Creation Tool handle the entire process of making the USB boot drive, there is a small problem when dealing with USB drives larger than 32GB. The tool will only create a single partition up to 32GB and then completely ignore the rest of the drive, and Windows-based operating systems can only handle a single partition on USB flash drives. Windows XP Notes If you are attempting to use Windows XP on a USB drive, there are a couple of things to bear in mind. First off, we strongly recommend 32-bit version to setup XP on a USB flash drive over the other methods, as its success rate is much better. As far as we know, the 32-bit ISO image of XP is the only compatible version that can be put on a bootable flash drive success for XP 64-bit was limited. We also found that a lot of modern hardware refuses to detect the drive. If you are using an older system, then you should have better luck booting Windows XP from a USB flash drive. Check the BIOS boot section and see if USB drives are supported. A number of systems we have tested this with had very mixed results. The USB media does work on a couple of laptops, but with other systems, it just boots up into a blank screen. You can read below for some more general advice as well. Common Problems No Bootable Device Detected This can be caused by a number of things. The most common is that your system is not setup to detect or boot from USB devices. Try a different ISO image if at all possible. Windows XP, Vista and 7, do not have native support for USB 3. Attempting to install with your flash drive plugged into a USB 3. Unplug your USB Flash Drive and insert it into a USB 2. You may still use a USB 3. If no USB 2. The Media Creation Tool MCT only supports drives up to 32GB, and anything larger will have a second partition made, which Windows can not detect normally but is still available if you plug it into a Linux machine for example. So download the ISO with MCT, then flash it with Rufus. Failing that, try to download from a different machine if possible. Update: This article was updated May 2018 by , to include and additional information regarding XP and USB size problems. Originally published December 2013.
