For many years now laptops, netbooks and other devices have come without an optical drive. While this isn’t a problem for most folk, those who like to use their computers to install different operating system on have had to resort to either attaching an external optical drive, or using the tried and tested method of booting from a USB stick.
The Linux users among us have been booting from a USB for a number of years, and are no strangers to the benefits that come when installing an operating system from the USB. These benefits include the speed at which the data is read from the USB pen drive compared to the speed data is read from an optical drive, and the fact that stability of the USB pen drives is considered much better than optical media these days. What’s more, pen drives are far more rubust, making them easier to transport.
The benefits aside, it’s always been a little easier to create a bootable Linux USB pen drive than a Windows one, the problems inherent with creating a decent windows boot image have plagued some users in the past. These days, however, it’s a lot simpler to create a Windows boot USB pen drive, and many of the regular applications that allow the creation of USB pen drives also allow Windows images to be written as well.
With Microsoft’s latest operating system upon us, what better time to give creating a USB boot installer a try. The process is remarkably simple, but you will need a few items first. The first is fairly obvious, you’ll be needing a USB pen drive that’s at least 4GB in size, a PC with Windows already installed (no matter the version) and a spare USB port. You’ll also need an .iso of Windows 8, which we’ll go through the creation of in a minute, and the free Windows 7 USB Tool. Don’t worry, it’ll work for any version of Windows from XP onwards.
Create The Windows 8 ISO
Let’s assume you have the disk version of Windows 8, what you need to do is transfer the image on the disk onto your PC as an .iso file. There are plenty of free applications out there that will help you do this, but one that has stood the test of time, and is certainly worth trying, is Daemon Tools Lite. You can grab hold of a copy from here, goo.gl/kjwgR.
Let’s assume you have the disk version of Windows 8, what you need to do is transfer the image on the disk onto your PC as an .iso file. There are plenty of free applications out there that will help you do this, but one that has stood the test of time, and is certainly worth trying, is Daemon Tools Lite. You can grab hold of a copy from here, goo.gl/kjwgR.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed it, launch the program and insert your Windows 8 disk. Click on the ‘Disc Imaging’ icon (the one with the optical disk and a floppy disk) form the main window. Next, choose the drive where the Windows 8 disk is located from the device drop-down menu. Then, under ‘Destination image file’, choose a path and name the disk image, Windows8.iso, for example. Finally, click ‘start’ and Daemon Tools will start to copy the data from the disk, including the boot image, into the .iso image.
The amount of time it takes to create the .iso image depends on the speed of the optical drive, the PC and the hard drive inside, but on the whole it shouldn’t take too long.
Install Windows 7 USB Tool
With the .iso now created, you can eject the Windows 8 disk and store it somewhere safe. What you need to do now is download this application, goo.gl/V3ubm, from the Microsoft Store. It’s the free Windows 7 USB Tool, and it’s only about 2.6MB in size. Double click the executable, once it’s downloaded, run the install and you’ll end up with the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool icon your desktop.
With the .iso now created, you can eject the Windows 8 disk and store it somewhere safe. What you need to do now is download this application, goo.gl/V3ubm, from the Microsoft Store. It’s the free Windows 7 USB Tool, and it’s only about 2.6MB in size. Double click the executable, once it’s downloaded, run the install and you’ll end up with the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool icon your desktop.
Create The USB Boot Stick
You can now, at this point, insert your USB pen drive, again make sure it’s at least 4GB in size, but it doesn’t require any special formatting as the Windows 7 USB Tool does all this for you. Next, double click the Windows 7 USB Tool icon on your desktop and Click ‘OK’, or ‘Yes’ to any administrative access that’s required.
You can now, at this point, insert your USB pen drive, again make sure it’s at least 4GB in size, but it doesn’t require any special formatting as the Windows 7 USB Tool does all this for you. Next, double click the Windows 7 USB Tool icon on your desktop and Click ‘OK’, or ‘Yes’ to any administrative access that’s required.
The Windows 7 USB Tool will create a bootable Windows 8 USB pen drive in four easy steps, it may take some time, but once it’s done it’ll be worth it.
Step 1. The first step in the process is to locate the source file, in this case it’s the Windows 8 .iso we created earlier. Just click on the ‘Browse’ button and use Windows Explorer to locate the .iso, then click on ‘Open’. The .iso, and path to it, will now be displayed in the Source File bar. Click ‘Next’ to continue.
Step 2. In this step you are required to choose a media type, from USB device or DVD. In this example we’re going to click the ‘USB Device’ button to continue to the next step. But it’s worth noting that this app can create DVD boot disks should you ever need any.
Step 3. This step should automatically detect your USB pen drive, and offer some brief information regarding it, such as the drive letter it has been assigned to, and the amount space left after the transfer of the .iso. If your USB pen isn’t displaying, try clicking the refresh icon next to the drive location, otherwise remove the pen, click on ‘Start Over’ and re-insert the pen again. If everything is okay, then simply click on the ‘Begin Copying’ button, sit back, and relax while the app does its job.
Step 4. The final step will simply show you the graphical status bar, including the basic steps it’s going through below. It’s not very exciting, to be honest, so you might want to find some wet paint and watch it dry in the meantime.
Final Task
When the format and transfer is complete, you’ll receive a final status from the USB Tool stating that the backup is complete. All that’s left to do now is close the down the Windows 7 USB Tool, remove the USB pen drive and insert it into the PC on which you want to install Windows 8. Remember to hit F12 (or whichever key initiates the boot order menu) and choose the newly created USB device as the boot medium.
When the format and transfer is complete, you’ll receive a final status from the USB Tool stating that the backup is complete. All that’s left to do now is close the down the Windows 7 USB Tool, remove the USB pen drive and insert it into the PC on which you want to install Windows 8. Remember to hit F12 (or whichever key initiates the boot order menu) and choose the newly created USB device as the boot medium.
As we said earlier, the installation of Windows 8 should be hassle free, and considerably quicker than when done from an optical drive, plus using a USB pen drive looks after your disk copy of Windows 8.
