Installing Windows Vista from USB Flash Disk

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1759653391106026179.post-44285706828876116262008-04-10T06:33:00.001-07:002008-04-10T06:34:56.715-07:00Installing Windows Vista from USB Flash DiskWhen I got myself the Sony VAIO TZ90 with 32 GB of SSD I decided not to have a CD drive installed but to rather opt for an additional 160 GB HDD for all those data files that bundle up when you are developer. Unfortunately that meant I have to find workarounds when installing the OS from scratch and one of them was to install Vista from a USB Flash Disk which is also a lot faster than a CD would ever be. <img height="187" src="http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/06/662700129gm.jpg" width="273" /> After finding lots of conflicting information on how to really go about installing from USB here is the sweet and short of how its done: 1. <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_download/fid,64963-page,1-c,downloads/download.html" target="_blank">Download and install the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool</a> (mouthful) and use it to format the USB Flash Disk using Fat32. 2. Insert your Vista CD into another Computer with CD ROM installed or use a Tool like Daemon Tools to attach the Vista ISO. Now do the following: <ul> <li>remember which drive your USB Stick is (for this example F:)</li> <li>remember which drive your Vista CD is (for this example E:)</li> <li>open a CMD window</li> <li>change directory to the "boot" folder on your Vista CD</li> <li>type bootsect /nt60 F: which will format the bootsector to be bootable for Vista</li> <li>change directory to the root of your Vista CD</li> <li>type xcopy E:\*.* /s/e/f/r/h/x F: which will copy the contents of your CD to your USB drive</li> <li>close the CMD window</li> <li>start the computer on which you want to install Vista</li> <li>ensure the BIOS is set to boot from USB</li> <li>boot and enjoy a blazing fast Vista installation</li> </ul> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1759653391106026179-4428570682887611626?l=devblurbs.blogspot.com'/></div>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18200623258379877366noreply@blogger.com3