B06: Installing Windows 7 or Vista From USB With FlashBoot

Contents

1. Preparing USB thumbdrive 2. Setting up BIOS to boot from USB thumbdrive 3. Running Windows 7 or Vista installation from USB thumbdrive

1. Preparing USB thumbdrive

Get USB thumbdrive. Fast one (USB 2.0 device) is recommended. Minimum capacity is 8Gb.

Download and install FlashBoot. Demo version will suffice.

Step-by-step guide follows:

1) Run FlashBoot, click Next

2) Choose CD -> USB in Main Menu

3) Choose CD/DVD drive or image file and click Next

4) Choose "Convert Windows Vista installation CD" from the scenario list and click Next

5) Choose target USB disk (flash, HDD) or image file and click Next

6) Enter volume label or leave it as is and click Next

7) Check summary information and click Next

8) Wait for process completion

9) USB disk is ready for use. Click OK to exit

2. Setting up BIOS to boot from USB thumbdrive

Follow this guide.

3. Running Windows 7 or Vista installation from USB thumbdrive

Windows 7 or Vista installation goes as usual, except in some rare cases you can encounter the following error:

   A required CD/DVD device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk,
   CD, DVD or USB flash drive, please insert it now.

   Note. If the windows installation media is in the drive, you can safely
   remove it for this step.

Screenshot of this error:

In this case please reboot, enter BIOS setup and put USB mass storage devices to USB-HDD boot mode. (USB-ZIP / Superfloppy / whatever else would cause this problem).

If it still doesn't work, here's another advice.
When Windows is asking for driver, just click Cancel. You will be brought back to the welcome screen. At the welcome screen, remove your USB drive, insert it back to different USB port. Click Install Now again. The installation process will be like usual.

This problem happened to all new version of updated Windows 7 installer. This is probably because of the failure of Windows installer to retain its detection to the USB drive. It lost the connection, and became confused, don't know where to find the USB drive it used to read before.

When we re-insert the USB drive, Windows installer will detect the USB drive back, and continue like usual.

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