USB drives are more portable, convenient, fast and safe to save and backup data. You can store your preferred data and they are becoming replacement for CD and DVDs. So, USB drives provides us so many features, what if it can be used to boot operating systems? It will be awesome isn’t it? Features of bootable pen drive The data contained on the booting device can be changed and additional data stored on the same device. A user can carry his or her preferred operating system The absence of moving parts in USB flash devices allows true random access avoiding the rotational latency and seek time (see mechanical latency) of hard drives or optical media, meaning small programs will start faster from a USB flash drive The software used to create bootable pen drives are freeware Probably takes less than 15 minutes to create bootable pen drives with your preferred operating system As same as bootable CD and DVDs
How to create bootable pen drive for Windows XP, 7, 8 and 8.1
Let’s begin with Windows XP
Win to flash tool for Windows XP
Windows XP is probably the most popular operating system from Microsoft. Even after the arrivals of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. It was still mostly used. Win to flash tool is used to boot windows XP from your USB drive. It is a simple handy tool. It extracts the contents Windows installation files and transfers them to USB drives to become bootable. For Windows XP 2 Gigabytes Pen drive is enough
1. Download Win to flash tool
2. The downloaded file will be compressed format (that is in rar format)
3. Extract the file using a compression software (like 7zip, winrar,etc) to get all the files with license
4. Run the exe file
5. Browse for the license and activate it
6. Begin in wizard mode
7. Select the source path of the Windows installation files
8. Select the USB drive
How to create bootable pen drive for Windows XP, 7, 8 and 8.1
9. Click next and allow it to format the drive
10. Now the setup will transfer the files to make your drive bootable
Now reboot to install Windows XP from USB flash drive.
Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool
Windows 7 USB/DVD tool is a hassle free application to create bootable pen drives and DVDs for windows 7, windows 8 and windows 8.1. Windows 7 USB/DVD tool creates bootable pen drives with source as iso image of the operating systems. It requires 4 Gigabytes USB drive for Windows 7 and 8 Gigabytes for windows 8 and 8.1. It is also quite same as Win to flash tool while it requires the source as installation files. Windows 7 USB/DVD tool requires iso image of the operating system
1. Download and Install Windows 7 USB/DVD tool
2. Choose the source iso image
3. Select the media type (USB device)
4. Select the USB drive
5. Begin copying
6. Allow it to format and finish copying files
Now your USB drive is bootable
Reboot and install your windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 from Peen drive. Another good thing for windows 8 and 8.1 bootable drives, as it is same as DVDs you can troubleshoot your OS with them.
Download and try these two applications to create bootable pen drive for Windows XP, 7, 8 and 8
