In my last two posts, I’ve talked about using a bootable USB drive to load Windows 7 onto a netbook or other computer that does not have a CD/DVD drive. The latest operating systems carry a lot of information and hardware drivers. That makes bootable media a requirement for upgrading the operating system.

Not All Netbooks Are Created Equal

The major issue with netbooks is that the earliest models came pre-loaded with Windows XP and an upgrade to Windows 7 would require a clean installation – a neat trick when you don’t have a CD/DVD drive from which to boot. To be fair, you can attach an external USB CD/DVD drive to a netbook and get along just fine using the standard-issue Window 7 media.

One disadvantage of this method is that the data transfer rates between the netbook and the CD/DVD drive will be slow. Upgrading or performing a clean installation on a capable netbook may take up a lot more time than you thought it might. In fairness, reading media from any external device will seem slow. The USB stick uses faster data transfer protocols so the process moves along much faster.

One last consideration: not all BIOS support booting from USB drives or other external devices. You’ll need to go into your BIOS setup to determine whether you can boot from a USB drive. Even if your BIOS does support external booting, computers aren’t always configured to look for boot sectors on devices other than the hard disk. If yours can, you’ll need to activate this setting if it’s not already activated. You may have to change more than one BIOS setting to enable this function. You normally access the BIOS settings immediately after you turn on your computer. You’ll see a direction that says something like Press F(N) to Enter Setup. (N) will be a number. Press the corresponding “F-key” to enter your computer’s BIOS setup.

Now, down to brass tacks – making a bootable USB drive. You’ll need to start out with a USB stick that has at least 4GB of space to accommodate the Windows installation media. If you can use a dedicated stick, better for you. You’ll need to wipe the stick’s contents, so if you can’t permanently commit your USB stick to the role of being bootable, you’ll have to transfer the data you have stored on it somewhere else temporarily. You’ll also need to use a computer that’s running Windows Vista or Windows 7 and have administrator privileges to make the bootable USB stick.

1. Attach your USB drive to the computer. Select Start > All programs >Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.
2. At the command prompt, type DISKPART. (Press enter)
3. Type LIST DISK. (Press Enter) The disk number of your USB drive will be displayed. Note this.
4. Type SELECT DISK #. (Replace # with the disk number of your USB drive, noted in Step 3.)
5. Type CLEAN (Press Enter)
6. Type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY (Press Enter)
7. Type SELECT PARTITION 1 (Press Enter)
8. Type ACTIVE (Press Enter)
9. Type ASSIGN (Press Enter)
10. Type DETAIL DISK (Press Enter).
11. Type EXIT (Press Enter)

Note the drive letter of your DVD drive and the drive letter of your USB stick.

12. Type FORMAT #:/fs:fat32/q (# is the assigned drive letter for your USB stick. Press Enter)
Approve the warning that appears regarding the information on the USB stick (Press Y, press Enter.)

13. Enter a label name for your USB drive and press Enter.
14. Put your Windows 7 DVD into your DVD drive
15. Type xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f #:\

This command string assumes that d:\ is your DVD drive. If your DVD drive has a different letter, substitute it for d:\. Also substitute the drive letter for your USB drive for the # in the command string above.
Once the copying is finished, you should have a bootable USB drive loaded with Windows 7 media.

Photo Credit: Ambuj Saxena, via Flickr