Create a Bootable USB Flash Disk

Create a Bootable USB Disk

This is part 4 of a 6 part series that will give you information on capturing and deploying images using ImageX. In this part, you will create a bootable USB disk drive from your prepared folders. You can use the USB disk to boot to WinPE.

• Part 1 Download and Install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK)
• Part 2 Prepare the Windows PE Folders
• Part 3 Prepare a Bootable CD
• Part 4 Prepare a Bootable USB (optional)
• Part 5 Run Sysprep and Capture an Image using ImageX
• Part 6 Deploy an Image using ImageX

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Warning! You will destroy all the data on your USB disk in these steps. Make sure you don’t have anything you can’t afford to lose stored on your USB disk before starting. Additionally, make sure you follow the procedure to accurately identify which disk is your USB disk. If you use the wrong disk when accessing the drive in DiskPart, you may erase all the data on the wrong disk, such as your hard drive. It could ruin your day!

1. Insert your USB disk into your system. Use Windows Explorer to identify which drive letter your USB is using. You'll need this letter later.
   
2. Launch a command prompt with administrative privileges. Click Start -> All Programs-> Accessories, right-click Command Prompt and select Run As Administrator.
   
3. From the command prompt, launch the Diskpart tool with the following command:
   DiskPart
   
4. In the DiskPart cool, enter the following commands :
   DiskPart
   List disk
   
5. Identify which disk is your USB disk. For example, on one system I did this on, the C: drive is 150GB and the USB disk was 2GB. Diskpart showed Disk 0 as 149 GB and Disk 1 as 1968 MB. Clearly disk 1 is the USB disk.


6. Assuming that Disk 1 is your USB disk, use the following commands to prepare your USB. If your disk is a different disk, substitute your number in the Select statement.
   Warning! If you select the wrong disk you will destroy all the data on the disk you select. For example, if you select the disk holding all the data on the C:\ drive, you will destroy all the data on this drive.
   Select disk 1 ‘ This select your USB
   diskClean ‘ This will erase all data
   create partition primary ‘ Creates one partition using all disk space
   Select partition 1 ‘ Selects the created partition
   active ‘ Makes the partition active
   Format fs=fat32 ‘ Formats the partition as Fat32 (takes time)
   assign ‘ Assigns a drive letter
   exit ‘ Exits DiskPart
   
7. Enter the following command to copy all of the data from your prepared iso directory to the USB disk. Substitute the letter x:\ for the actual letter of your USB disk identified earlier. (You may need to use Windows Explorer or Disk Management to identify the USB drive letter).
   xcopy c:\winpe_x86\iso\*.* /s /e /f x:\
   At this point, you have a fully bootable USB drive.

In the next part you'll create a bootable USB flash drive that has the same contents as the bootable CD created in this part.

Part 1 Download and Install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK)
Part 2 Prepare the Windows PE Folders
Part 3 Prepare a Bootable CD
Part 4 Prepare a Bootable USB (optional)
Part 5 Run Sysprep and Capture an Image using ImageX
Part 6 Deploy an Image using ImageX

This information is valuable when preparing for the MCITP: Enterprise Support Technician exams.