Install Windows from a USB Flash Drive

Here’s how to create a bootable Windows installation USB drive starting with a Windows .iso file or a Windows Setup DVD.

If you’re looking for an easy way to create a bootable USB Windows installation drive, use the media creation tool.

What you need

• Windows 10 install .iso or DVD
• USB flash drive with at least 5GB free space. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesn’t have any important files on it.
• Technician PC — Windows PC that you’ll use to format the USB flash drive
• Destination PC — A PC that you’ll install Windows on

Step 1 — Format the drive and set the primary partition as active

Connect the USB flash drive to your technician PC.

Open Disk Management: Right-click on Start and choose Disk Management.

Format the partition: Right-click the USB drive partition and choose Format. Select the FAT32 file system to be able to boot either BIOS-based or UEFI-based PCs.

Set the partition as active: Right-click the USB drive partition and click Mark Partition as Active.

If Mark Partition as Active isn’t available, you can instead use diskpart to select the partition and mark it active.

Step 2 — Copy Windows Setup to the USB flash drive

Use File Explorer to copy and paste the entire contents of the Windows product DVD or ISO to the USB flash drive.

Optional: add an unattend file to automate the installation process. For more information, see Automate Windows Setup.

Step 3 — Install Windows to the new PC

Connect the USB flash drive to a new PC.

Turn on the PC and press the key that opens the boot-device selection menu for the computer, such as the Esc/F10/F12 keys. Select the option that boots the PC from the USB flash drive.

Windows Setup starts. Follow the instructions to install Windows.

Remove the USB flash drive.

If your Windows image is larger than 4GB

Windows USB install drives are formatted as FAT32, which has a 4GB filesize limit. If your image is larger than the filesize limit:

Copy everything except the Windows image file (sources\install.wim) to the USB drive (either drag and drop, or use this command, where D: is the mounted ISO and E: is the USB flash drive.)

Split the Windows image file into smaller files, and put the smaller files onto the USB drive:

Two Ways to Put Windows 10 on USB Drive

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional enables you to put Windows 10 (ISO) on USB and make a bootable USB drive for a portable Windows workspace.

By Cherry / Last Updated March 24, 2021

Need to put Windows 10 on a USB drive

“I am a Windows 10 user, and I always on my business trip. Recently, I want to put my Windows 10 on a USB drive so that I can only take this USB drive instead of a heavy laptop on my trip. Is there any easy way to help me put Windows 10 on USB drive? Thanks in advance!”

How to: put Windows 10 on USB drive [2 ways]

Actually, there are certain Windows 10/8/7 users who would like to put their Windows 10/8/7 on USB drive. The portable Windows 10/8/7 USB drive could help users boot any computer so that they can work with their own system everywhere, which is convenient and humanized. You may know that Windows 8/10 Enterprise version and Windows 10 Education version allow you to create Windows To Go USB drive with a Microsoft-certified USB drive. But what if you are not using Windows 10 Enterprise or Education version, or you don’t have a Microsoft-certified USB drive, what can you do?

To install Windows 10 on USB flash drive, you need to find a Windows 10 bootable USB tool first. And here we highly recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, a disk partition manager that including Windows To Go Creator, which allows you to put Windows 10 on USB easily, ignoring what Windows 10’s version is and whether it is a Microsoft-certified USB drive. The operation is simple, and it can break out the limitation of Windows built-in Windows To Go Creator. What’s more, no matter you have Windows 10 installation disc/Windows 10 ISO file or not, AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you create a bootable Windows 10 USB drive. If you are using Windows Server 2008 R2/2012/2012 R2/2016/2019, you should use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server edition.

вњ” Way 1. If you have a Windows 10 installation disc/ISO

If you have a Windows 10 installation disc/ISO file, AOMEI Partition Assistant provides you a way to put Windows 10 on USB SSD, HDD or flash drive easily. And you can follow the steps below:

Preparing:

в–Є A Windows 10 ISO file.
в–Є A 3.0 USB drive that is at least 32GB. The larger is better.
в–Є AOMEI Partition Assistant and install it on your Windows 10 PC.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, to bring Windows 10 to USB flash drive, here you need to click «All Tools» > «Windows To Go Creator».

Step 2. Choose «Create Windows ToGo for personal computer» and click Next.

Step 3. In Windows To Go Creator wizard, here you need to choose the first method, and click «Next».

Step 3. Select the USB drive you prepared before. And then, click Browse to select the Windows ISO file. Then, click Proceed.

Step 4. It will pop-up a window to remind you that the program will delete all data on the USB drive and format it. If there is any important data, please backup files on USB drive before starting. Click Yes. And it will start to create Windows 10 bootable USB drive for you.

✔ Way 2. If you don’t have Windows 10 installation disc or ISO file

If you don’t have Windows 10 installation disc or ISO file, AOMEI Partition Assistant can also help you install Windows 10 on USB — It can migrate your current system (support Windows 7/8/8.1/10) to USB flash drives or removable hard drives and completely retain all data and the software installed on the current system.

Connect the USB drive to your computer. For a smooth running, the USB drive should be at least 64GB, larger is better, and follow the steps below:

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, click «All Tools» -> «Windows To Go Creator». Then, choose «Create Windows To Go for personal computer» and «Create Windows To Go with current system”.

Step 3. It will display you the current OS information, confirm it, and click «Nex t» .

Step 4. Here to select a target location from the removable devices below to migrate the current system. Besides USB drive, you can also use SSD/HDD.

Step 5. Click «Proceed». It will remind you that the program will restart into the Windows PE environment to create Windows To Go. And the operation will clear all data on the target USB drive. Click “Yes” to continue. Wait until the progress reaches 100%.

After that, disconnect the USB drive, and you can boot Windows 10 from the USB drive on any computer.

Boot Windows 10 from USB drive

After putting Windows 10 on a USB drive, you can connect the Windows 10 bootable drive to any computer. Get into BIOS during starting. Then, change the boot order to boot Windows 10 from the USB drive.

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