This post is about how to prepare the USB Flash to install Windows from it. It works fine with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012. Maybe it could work with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (I has not checked myself).
1) Mount Windows image. Just double-click on ISO image. Remember the letter of the drive that Windows assigned to this image. In my case it’s disk G:
2) Plug in USB flash and remember the letter of the drive. It’s H:
3) Open command prompt and do NOT close it until the end.
4) Run the following commands to create a NTFS partition on USB flash:
| Command | Description |
| diskpart | starts Disk Partition tool |
| list disk | shows a list of disks, find USB flash disk and remember its number |
| select disk # | replace # with USB flash disk number |
| clean | deletes everything on USB flask |
| create partition primary | creates partition |
| select partition 1 | |
| active | makes it active |
| format fs=ntfs quick | quick formats with NTFS file system |
| exit |
5) Run the following commands to create a boot sector on USB flash:
| Command | Description |
| G: | change drive, G: is a drive letter of Windows image |
| cd boot | go to a folder |
| bootsect /nt60 H: | create a boot sector, H: is a drive letter of USB flash |
6) Copy all files from all directories, including empty subdirectories, hidden and system files from Windows image (drive G:) to USB flash (disk H:):
| cd .. | go to a drive root |
| xcopy G: H: /E /F /H |
7) Close command prompt