[Tutorial] - How to create a bootable pen drive (using command prompt)

For installing any new Operating system in your PC, you will be needing a bootable disk containing its setup. If you are using the purchased version of the OS, you will get the bootable DVD drive from the seller itself. If you plan to install from the ready made .iso file that you already have, then you have to manually create a Bootable disk drive for the installation. Since read/write speed of the CD/DVD is lower, its better to prefer Pen Drives. (because they have great read/write speeds and they can be re used too). Of course you will get many softwares in the web to do that. But its always fun to learn how things are made, from the scratch. This tutorial is going to be about how to create a bootable USB drive.

Things you will need:

A pen drive of size capacity greater than the OS you are going to install
The .iso file of the OS.

Steps to follow:

Insert the pen drive in to the PC. (make sure to Backup every data of the pen drive, because you are about to format it now)
Type 'cmd' in search bar of your windows and hit 'Enter' to open the command prompt. (see picture below)

Type 'diskpart' in the command prompt and hit 'Enter'. This should open up 'Disk part' application (see picture below)

Once disk part is opened up, type 'list disk' here and hit 'Enter'. This will show all the connected disk drives to the PC. The first disk (disk 0) is the PC's internal hard disk. Make sure to not mess up with Disk 0. Find your disk in the list (identify by the size) and note down the label of it. (See picture below)

Select your disk by typing the command 'select <your disk label>' and hit Enter. [For example, if your disk is 'disk 1'. Type 'select disk 1' and hit Enter]. (see picture below)

Once selected, clean your disk drive by typing the command 'clean'. This will clean up your device. (see picture below).

Now create a primary partition by typing 'create partition primary '. and hit Enter. (see picture below)

Select the partition by typing 'select partition'. (see picture below)

Now format this partition by typing 'format fs=ntfs quick'. This will perform a format of your drive's primary partition with file type 'NTFS'. (see picture below)

Make the partition as active by typing 'active'. This will make your USB drive as active while booting the PC. (see picture below)

Work is done. Type 'exit' and hit Enter, to exit the disk part and do the same in command prompt to exit.

That's it, you have made the USB drive as bootable. Next step is to make it an installation drive for any OS that you wish to install.

Extarct the Operating system setup files out of its .iso file using any archive manager.
Copy the extarcted contents into the Bootable USb drive that you have just created. (not inside any folder).
Reboot the PC with the pen drive installed and follow these steps.

Video tutorial of this article on YouTube

Author : Anonymous

He is a simple passionate tech freak who himself is an engineering student at Canara Engineering college. He likes App Development, Web designing, Blogging, Youtubing, Debugging and also is a CodeGeek!