Windows 7 screams on netbooks. My wife and I both run it on MSI Wind netbooks with 1.5GB Ram flawlessly. Installing it isn’t so easy though. Netbooks don’t have optical drives and Windows 7 RC ships as an ISO to burn your own disc. What to do….
What You Need
First, obviously, download the Windows 7 RC from http://www.microsoft.com/windows7 and don’t forget to write or print your product key, that’s a must. Also, for netbooks, make sure it’s the 32-bit version you download because your netbook might not play nice with the 64-bit version.
Windows 7 is a big bugger at 2.4GB, so you’ll probably need a 4GB or larger thumb drive to fit it.
Preparing the Flash Drive
This process will differ a little bit depending on which OS you are making the drive on, but don’t fret, you can do it on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X with no problem.
Step One is getting the files out of the ISO and expanded onto your disk
I used Mac OS X’s Disk Utility to mount the ISO and then just copied the files out of it. For Windows, use DaemonTools Lite and do the same thing, mount it and then copy the files out of it onto your hard disk.
Step Two is formatting the thumb drive and making it bootable
For this task, you need to do a little command line skullduggery, this is perhaps a little PC Jedi magic to the uninitiated, but it’s not that bad. I’ll assume you are using Vista for these tasks:
- Connect your thumb drive to your PC
- Right-click “Command Prompt” under Programs > Accessories and select “Run as administrator.”
- Find the drive number for your flash drive using these commands
diskpart
list disk
The number of your thumb drive will be in the list. - Format the drive using the commands listed below (we’ll assume your drive number was 1 in this example)
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit - From the command prompt, browse to the folder you copied the contents of the Windows 7 ISO to and then to the boot folder. If you are using Vista it should look something like
cd c:\Users\username\Desktop\Windows7\boot\ - Now we will use bootsect to make the USB a bootable NTFS drive that is ready for the Windows 7 Install Files.
bootsect /nt60 x:(assuming X is the drive letter of your thumb drive.)
That’s it, you can close the command prompt, the USB drive should now be bootable and ready to go.
Step Three is copying the Windows 7 Install Files
Simple enough, you copied them to your desktop in Step 1, now take everything that’s inside the folder you copied them too, and copy them to the root of your thumb drive.
Parting Thoughts
Not every machine is ready to go for USB booting, you might have to check the BIOS settings to enable this for your particular machine.
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Thanks for the thorough and clear walkthrough- it’s greatly appreciated by this reader!
One question, if you’ll indulge me- how would one perform the flash drive formatting in OS X ?
Take care, and be well,
Alex
Ah, nevermind, figured out a solution.
Peace,
Alex
hi. that good info but, how would one perform the flash drive formatting in OS X ? please help
Take care, and be well
hi. that good info but, how would one perform the flash drive formatting in OS X ? please help
Take care, and be well
and thanks
:thanx dude, it works !!!!
Wait, so you tell us “This process will differ a little bit depending on which OS you are making the drive on, but don’t fret, you can do it on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X with no problem.”
…so deliver what you promise, or don’t make the promise
You certainly don’t see BOOTSECT.EXE shipped with OS X.
You are an idiot. He didn’t “promise” anything other than that it was possible to get the same result with other operating systems. Use the guide for its intended purpose and google it if all the info you need isn’t here.
you’re the idiot
Please help. I am trying to create a bootable xp flash for my windows XP but I am not familiar with the MACbook, I don’t know how to get to the command prompt and I cannot find the programs and accessories, can you please help me go step by step so I can fix my windows xp, I have lost all hope. I feel like a moron expecially since I have been dealing with nothing but windows vista, xp, 2k and 7. Can you please help me.
thanks dude ll try that tomorrow hope t works out…stay blessed
Good job buddy !!!!!!
this was very very helpful, saved my butt today thanks man:-)
Hy Thanks Dude… Great tutorial… it was quit easy following your steps and you know what…? I got my Bootable USB is just 15 Minutes.. Thanks Again Pal…
Hi Jason,
Is there some way to copy files from windows7 recovery folder to create a USB startup disk, without having an ISO or Optical drive?
Thanks in advance
‘Guest’ You are the idiot! Thank you for the instructions Jason Burns, but you did say: “don’t fret, you can do it on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X with no problem.” Of course there is a problem – You failed to tell us how to accomplish this on OSX (something many people no doubt have stumbled across this page in search of).
So, here goes:
1. Open diskutility, format your usb drive as freespace
2. Open terminal and type:
sudo -s
3. Enter your password.
4. Enter:
diskutil list
5. Look through the list and identify your usb stick (For example mine is /dev/disk3)
6. Use dd if=/location_of/image.iso of=/dev/disk3 to restore a bootable image to the usb drive
I typed:
dd if=/Users/jack/Documents/windows7.iso of=/dev/disk3
I wanted to restore a windows7 image to usb so I can boot my osx86 netbook and install as a second operating system… Worked fine – Hope this helps someone!
no bootloader?
For step 2 he did say “I’ll assume you are using Vista for these tasks:”.. , meaning he knew he was not including the instructions for Mac OS X, which is also the only OS mentioned that the instructions provided for step 2 would not work with. Don’t see the problem.
P.S: *Guest – I did Google it and thats how I ended up on this page,
some people really are ……
m i n d b o g g l i n g
pls i tried the process and my 8gb flash got damaged. It does not format, neither does it appears on my compuet. It is listed in the command prompt though. Pls help me to ma inbox @ princetegaton@gmail.com
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