How To Make a Bootable Pendrive From The Command Prompt (CMD)

A bootable Pendrive is a USB drive that allows you to use the file system stored in a flash drive to boot the computer rather than using hardware. A bootable USB drive has a lot of benefits.

Making Bootable Pendrive Steps

1. Open an elevated Windows command line window by clicking Start, typing in cmd in the search text field, then pressing CTRL + Shift + Enter on your keyboard (at the same time). You can also access this by navigating to Start, All Programs, Accessories, right-clicking with your mouse on the Command Prompt menu item, and selecting Run as Administrator.

2. At the command prompt, type cd c:windowssystem32 to change the directory to the Windows system32 directory. Ensure your USB drive is plugged in type DISKPART and press Enter. Then type LIST DISK and press Enter.

3. You will see a listing of the disk drives connected to your computer. Find the disk number of your USB drive and type SELECT DISK [USB disk #], where “[USB disk #]” is the disk # for your USB drive. It should now state that your USB drive is the selected disk. If you’re not sure what disk is the USB disk, eject the USB drive, perform step number 2 again, connect the USB drive again, and compare the results. Usually the USB drive will be the last drive.

4. Type in the following commands, one by one, pressing Enter after each command.

CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS
(may take a couple minutes, depending on the USB drive size)
ASSIGN
EXIT

Keep the command prompt window open, but you can minimize it for a little bit.

5. You will now need your Windows Vista or 7 Installation DVD. Put the DVD in your computer’s DVD drive. Open up My Computer and note which drive letter is assigned to your DVD Drive and your USB flash drive.

6. Go back to the command prompt window and type in D: CD BOOT (substitute your DVD drive letter for “D:” if necessary) and press Enter. Type CD BOOT again and press Enter. Lastly, type BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H: (substitute your USB flash drive letter for “H:” if necessary) and press Enter.

7. The last step is to copy the entire contents of the Windows DVD to your USB flash drive.

Step by step making bootable pen drive

Step 1: Format the Drive
Just place the flash drive in the USB port of your computer. Open command prompt (cmd). You can do that by pressing WINKEY+R, right click on the listed file and click on “Run as administrator“.
Enter the following commands in the same order as I did here:
Enter the following commands in the same order as I did here:
Enter the following commands in the same order as I did here:
diskpart
list disk
select disk z (where z is the number corresponding for your USB disk. You have to replace it with the corresponding letter from your own system).

clean
create partition primary
active
format fs=fat32 quick

assign
exit

Please be careful using the select command (so you don’t select and format your hard disk instead)

If everything goes well, this is how your cmd screen will look like

Step 2: Mount The Windows 8 ISO Image Into A Virtual Drive

If you don’t have a physical optical drive you should mount the image into a virtual drive. You can install and use PowerISO

Step 3: Make The External Hard Disk Bootable

I’m assuming that F is your drive letter with Windows 8 ISO image and G: is the location of yourexternal hard disk (or flash drive) . Open the command prompt screen (as administrator) and type the commands:

F:
cd boot
bootsect.exe /nt60 g:

Also, don’t forget to triple check the target location so you don’t accidentally delete the boot sector of your hard disk

Step 4: Copy The Installer Files

After the above step, don’t close the command prompt (at least not yet). At this moment your new external hard disk or flash drive is bootable but you need to execute one more command in order to transfer the files to your new drive. You have to type the following command line:

xcopy f:*.* g: /e /f /h

Again replace the drive letters with the ones that apply to you. Alternatively you can copy all the files in the virtual drive to the flash drive or external hard drive by using Windows Explorer, but using XCOPY ensures that system and hidden files are also copied.

Step 5: Boot Off the External Hard Drive or USB Flash Drive

To use and boot from your newly created drive on your netbook or computer, first you have to set your computer you must set it to boot through the USB flash drive. In order to do this shut down your computer, go in the CMOS setup by pressing the “DEL” or “F2″ key when the computer power on, without unplug the newly created external hard drive or USB Flash Drive from the machine. Set the device as the primary boot option, save the changes BIOS and restart. On newer computers you can boot from the device without entering into BIOS by pressing either “ESC”, “F9″ or “F11″ (different key on different manufacturers).

Now you can install Windows as usual. Please be aware that if you’ve changed the boot sequence in the BIOS, remember to change it back as it was after copying the files (usually after first automatic reboot).

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