Flash Booting

Boot Window on Flash USb (Window 7, Window 8, Window 8.1) 

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1. WinToFlash
USB install support for: Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7 and 8.

The WinToFlash utility has quite a lot of options and support for installing from XP right up to windows 8 using a USB flash drive. In addition to Windows, there are also some other related functions such as creating an XP/2003 recovery console and error checking. The program has 2 different modes which can be used depending on your experience level, a Wizard mode which offers to get you going in a few easy steps, or an Advanced mode which gives a wealth of options and more control over the whole process. The program requires you select a drive or folder as the source, not an ISO image. Sadly the setup installer includes the BetterInstaller adware and even the portable version contains adware on 1st run and also uses inline ads.

Download WinToFlash

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2. WiNToBootic
USB install support for: Windows Vista, 2008, 7 and 8.

WiNToBootic is designed solely to be a small and completely portable standalone executable that can get the Windows Vista, 7 and 8 install files onto USB flash drive with the minimum of fuss. A useful feature not immediately apparent is you can click on the source arrow to locate an ISO file to be converted, or you can alternatively drag and drop an ISO, a folder containing the Windows files or even an install CD/DVD from My Computer. Simply make sure your USB drive is selected if not already, choose whether to format or not and press the Do it! button. WiNToBootic is one of the quicker programs at completing the process and also one of the easiest to use. The .NET Framework v2.0 is required.

Download WiNToBootic

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3. Rufus
USB install support for: Windows XP SP2+, 2003, Vista, 7 and 8.

We’re quite big fans of Rufus because apart from being a great little tool to format USB drives and also check them for errors and bad blocks, there is also direct USB support to install MS-DOS and FreeDOS which is good for BIOS flashing, various Linux images and you can install Windows from XP SP2 up to 8. Rufus is also very reliable and one of the fastest tools around at getting the Windows install files onto the USB drive while still being easy to use. Simply click on the select ISO icon and find your Windows ISO image, then click Start and wait for the process to complete. Nothing else needs to be touched as the program will select the best file system and name for you. Rufus is a completely portable executable and is less than 500KB.

Download Rufus

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4. WinUSB Maker
USB install support for: Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003/2008, 7 and 8.

Josh Cell Softwares make some other nice tools such as Advanced Tokens Manager and WinAIO Maker, while WinUSB Maker is a smart tool that can install just about any version of the Windows install CD/DVD from XP to 8 onto USB. It can also install a Linux Grub loader or MS-DOS if you wish, and includes a nice addition of a full USB backup and restore function to make a copy of the flash drive before putting Windows onto it. Another thing some users might find useful is the ability to work with and install using either an ISO image file or a directory with the extracted files if you have been slipstreaming or editing the Windows distro. WinUSB Maker is a standalone executable and requires the .NET Framework v4.0 to run.

Download WinUSB Maker

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5. Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool
USB install support for: Officially Windows 7, also worked for us with Vista / 8.

This is Microsoft’s official tool for putting the Windows 7 setup onto a USB stick and has a disadvantage over most other tools of this type by requiring installation before creating an install USB drive. Microsoft says it only supports Windows 7 ISO images, but we also successfully booted and installed both Vista and Win 8 from USB using this tool. The program is a breeze to use and can easily put the image onto USB or burn it out to DVD if you want. Just follow the 4 easy steps and the Windows install USB will be created, although the speed at which the program creates the USB is known to be a bit slower than most other USB installer tools. Requires the .NET Framework v2.0 or higher.

Download Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool

6. Universal USB Installer / YUMI
USB install support for: Windows Vista, 7 and 8.

Universal USB Installer and YUMI are similar programs from Pendrivelinux.com, looking and working in a similar way. The main difference is YUMI has support for installing multiple ISO images onto a USB flash drive and Universal USB Installer can install one ISO image at a time. They both have options to install and also download a number of Linux operating system images and repair CD’s along with direct USB installer support for Vista, 7 and 8. These two tools are one of the few that is able to install Kon-Boot onto a USB. All you have to do is select which Windows to install from the Step 1 drop down (near the bottom), locate the ISO and choose the USB drive to install to. Formatting is optional. The YUMI interface is slightly more complicated due to the multiboot options. Both tools are entirely portable.

Download Universal USB Installer | Download YUMI

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7. UNetbootin
USB install support for: None officially, Windows Vista, 7 and 8 worked for us.

UNetbootin is a very popular tool for downloading and installing Linux distro’s onto USB. Although a lot of people try to use it for installing the Windows setup onto USB, the program doesn’t officially support this and it seems a look around the internet reveals there are as many failures as successes. We ran quick tests to install Windows Vista, 7 and 8 ISO’s to USB using UNetbootin and it seemed to work IF you format the flash drive to NTFS beforehand. Just select Diskimage and browse for the ISO file, then choose your USB drive. Because the other tools here are designed to work with Windows by their developers, it’s recommended to try them before UNetbootin.

Download UNetbootin

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8. RMPrepUSB
USB install support for: Windows XP, Vista, 2008, 7 and 8.

RMPrepUSB is quite a comprehensive tool and can look a bit complicated to use compared to most other USB installers. Unfortunately, although the website can be a great resource for tutorials on various ways to put windows setup files onto a USB drive, it also can be quite difficult to find your way around. If you’re confident or experienced enough, there are a number of useful features such as multiple bootloader options, several fixes and tweaks to help with compatibility, a backup and restore function, a speed tester and also a size tester which can help detect fake sized USB flash drives. RMPrepUSB runs you through a series of 6 steps to create the install Windows USB, the small help window will offer tips on the best options for your particular operating system. Installer and portable versions are available.

Download RMPrepUSB

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9. Koala
USB install support for: Windows Vista, Server 2008, 7 and 8.

Koala is a small and portable utility that can get Windows Vista, 7 and 8 setup files onto USB stick, but does have a limitation which is only support for copying the files from drives and not ISO images or folders. You can however mount an ISO using virtual drive software such as Daemon Tools and do it that way. Simply make sure you have Windows inserted into some form of drive, plug in the USB flash drive and press the Scan buttons for both Source and Destination which should find your devices and populate the boxes. Then press Start to begin the process and wait for your USB Windows installer to be created. Koala needs the .NET Framework v2.0.

Download Koala

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10. The Manual Way Using DiskPart

USB install support for: Windows Vista, 7 and 8.

This last method is for the Command Prompt lovers out there and uses the Diskpart tool built into Windows to prepare the USB flash drive for the files. This should be used with care because you could easily wipe the wrong drive and lose data if not selecting the drives correctly. This method was tested and confirmed working on Windows Vista, 7 and 8. You obviously need to press Enter after typing in each command.

1. Insert your USB flash drive.
2. Press Win key+R, type cmd.
3. Type diskpart.
4. Type list disk, then identify the disk number for your USB flash drive. You MUST be very sure to find the correct number or you’ll end up formatting the wrong drive later on. If you have only one hard drive, then normally your USB flash drive will be disk 1.

5. Type select disk [disk#].
6. Type clean.
7. Type create partition primary.
8. Type select partition [disk#].
9. Type active.
10. Type format fs=ntfs quick.
11. Type assign.
12. Type exit.
DiskPart Steps 5 -12 in Command Prompt:

13. Insert the Windows installation DVD disc, mount the ISO or open it with 7-Zip, or locate a folder containing the Windows files, and copy everything from there onto your USB flash drive.
Boot up your computer with the USB flash drive. As with all these tools, you will need to go into your BIOS and make sure it is set to boot from USB devices, or press a key such as F11 or F6 etc while the BIOS screen is visible to select the boot device. If you got it right, you should now be able to load and install Windows from your USB flash drive.

5 Ways to Remount Ejected or Safely Removed USB Device Without Unplug and Reinsert

1. DevEject
DevEject is a simple software that can be configured to replace the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media in Windows. It has the ability to eject, unplug, detect files in use that prevent the device from ejecting, and hotkey support.

To remount an ejected USB drive, simply select the device from Dev Eject and click on the Replug button which we’ve highlighted in the screenshot above. The replug feature worked perfectly when tested in Windows XP and 7 but not in Windows 8.1 as the program kept on crashing. Although Dev Eject comes in a setup installer, you can actually copy the program folder to another computer and use it without reinstalling.
Download DevEject

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2. USB Safely Remove
USB Safely Remove is an extended USB device manager. It is able to completely replace the native “Safely Remove Hardware Icon” in Windows and offer a lot more functionality such as renaming/stopping/hiding a device, program autorun on connect/disconnect, command line and keyboard shortcut keys support, investigate why a device cannot be stopped/ejected, and most importantly returning a device back without reconnecting it (unplug and reinsert). USB Safely Remove can even detect and notify you if other devices will be affected when returning the device back.

Although USB Safely Remove is a shareware claiming that you can use all the features for the first 30 days. The program can still fully work after expiration though, a registration reminder notification will be displayed with a 30 second countdown before you can continue the popup.
Download USB Safely Remove

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3. Zentimo
Zentimo is the successor of USB Safely Remove created by the same developers with the aim to be a Swiss army knife for the management of external storage devices. It has all the features found in USB Safely Remove plus a quick launch menu to easily launch portable applications, testing the speed of the drive, disabling Windows autorun, portable settings and TrueCrypt integration.

To return a stopped device back, simply click on the device that is marked with “Ready for safe removal” or you can also right click and select “Return device back!”. The development for both USB Safely Remove and Zentimo has slowed down a lot recently with no updates for a year but they do officially support Windows 8.
Zentimo is also a shareware and the trial limitation is exactly the same as USB Safely Remove where you can still continue using it even when it has expired.
Download Zentimo

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4. Disable and Re-enable USB Mass Storage Device
This fourth method is a manual way of remounting an ejected USB device without relying on a third party software. When you’ve ejected a USB flash drive, the device icon will be shown with a yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager with the message saying “Windows cannot use this hardware device because it has been prepared for safe removal but it has not been removed from the computer (Code 47)”.

Tip: To access Device Manager, press WIN + Pause/Break keys to bring up System and click on Device Manager from the left pane.

For Windows XP, all you need to do is right click on the device, select Disable and click Yes to confirm. Right click on the device again, this time select Enable and you’ll notice that Windows will start to re-detect and remount the USB drive.
For Windows 8.1, do the same as above and make sure you click on No when prompted to restart your computer after selecting Enable. Repeat the steps of disabling and enabling the device one more time and again click on No when asked to restart. Amazingly Windows 8.1 remounts the ejected Drive after cycling the disable and enable twice. Strangely this method does not work on Windows 7.

You can automate this task automatically using a batch file with devcon.exe. DevCon is a command line utility that can perform a number of actions such as enabling and disabling a device in Device Manager. You can download devcon.exe from here, extract and use the build (either 32-bit or 64-bit) according to your Windows architecture.
First you’ll need to find the Hardware ID of your USB flash drive from Device Manager. Double click on the USB Mass Storage Device, go to Details tab, and select Hardware IDs from the Property drop down menu. Note down the value of your USB device.

Copy the 4 lines below and paste it into Notepad. Replace the values of *Your_PARTIAL_HW_ID* according to your device’s hardware ID.

devcon disable *YOUR_PARTIAL_HW_ID*
devcon enable *YOUR_PARTIAL_HW_ID*
devcon disable *YOUR_PARTIAL_HW_ID*
devcon enable *YOUR_PARTIAL_HW_ID*

You can either enter full or partial hardware ID depending if you have another device with the same vendor ID. As you can see from the screenshot below, we used a wildcard on VID_13FE because we know that there is no other device with the hardware ID VID_13FE other than our USB flash drive.

Place the batch file together with devcon.exe. Whenever you run the batch file, it will automatically enable and disable your USB device twice to force Windows 8.1 to remount your ejected USB flash drive.

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5. Uninstall USB Root Hub
Uninstalling USB Root Hub and reinstalling it again can also trigger Windows to remount an ejected USB flash drive. The steps are quite similar to the fourth method and it works on Windows 7. First you need to eject the drive, then go to Device Manager by pressing WIN + Pause/Break keys and click on Device Manager at the left pane. Click on View menubar and select Devices by connection.
Locate the USB Mass Storage Device with a yellow exclamation mark, right click on the parent “USB Root Hub” and select Uninstall. If you’re using Windows 7, click on the Action menu bar and select “Scan for hardware changes”. This will force Windows to register and reinstall any USB devices under the USB Root Hub that you’ve uninstaller earlier. If you’re on Windows 8.1, Microsoft has made it so much easier because Windows will instantly remount your USB device after uninstalling the USB Root Hub.

Unlike disabling and re-enabling a USB Mass Storage Device, you won’t be asked to restart your computer but if you have another device such as an ADSL modem connected to your USB port, then it might get disconnected when you uninstall the USB Root Hub. The devcon command is also much simpler because you don’t really need to identify the hardware ID that you want to uninstall. Use the command below:

devcon remove *root_hub20*

For Windows 7, you’ll need to add a second line to rescan for hardware changes.

devcon rescan

A ready made batch file to remove the USB Root Hub and rescan for hardware changes has been made available for you which can be downloaded from the link below. Simply download the package according to your Windows architecture.
Download Devcon Remove Rescan for 32-Bit | 64-Bit