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How to Make a Windows Boot USB Drive
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how-to-make-a-windows-boot-usb-drive.md

How to Make a Windows Boot USB Drive

  1. Obtain a reliable copy of a Windows ISO. When in doubt, reference well known cryptographic checksums when validating such critical files.

  2. Format a USB drive for a Windows NTFS partition, such as with Tuxera. For modern hardware, opt for GPT-style instead of MBR.

  3. Mount the Windows ISO as a virtual disc.

  4. Copy all files from the Windows virtual disc onto the USB partition.

  5. Cleanly eject USB drive.

  6. Insert USB drive into the desired computer.

  7. Reboot the computer. Quickly begin tapping F2/Esc/F12, or similar key, to access BIOS.

  8. Configure USB drive as priority boot device.

  9. Reboot.

  10. Use available menus to analyze the machine and attempt the desired operations.

Note 1: USB-booted operating systems can run very slowly. Navigate through Windows dialogs with care: Backtracking stinks. Be patient. Solid blue screens should eventually turn into usable menus.

Note 2: The command line terminal is one of the most useful recovery applications. Here, a variety of utilities can analyze your system and provide clues for what is going bad, such as diskpart and chkdsk.

Note 3: For some extreme situations, it may be easier to use a Linux livecd ISO (e.g. Ubuntu) and Etcher, at which point you will have many more tools available, such as yannubuntu/boot-repair. Other common boot media include MemTest86 and Darik's Boot and Nuke, especially for potential hardware concerns.

Note 4: Your BIOS has a wealth of information. For example, it lists bootable devices. If your desired drive is missing, then something is preventing the drive from being bootable.

Note 5: When in doubt, check the hardware. Unplug and replug cables.

Note 6: Physical install media is notoriously fragile. If the rescue or installation process fails, then try reformatting the USB drive from scratch. You may need to redownload and verify the checksum of the ISO.

Note 7: To save time, skip entering product keys when you can. Once rescue / installation succeeds, then you'll have plenty of time to configure these details.

Note 8: Windows install media has ballooned past the limits of what FAT32 partitions can contain. So you are forced to use exFAT (which many BIOS implementations fail to boot) or NTFS (which is proprietary and unsupported from many non-Windows computers).

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