{"id":9832,"date":"2009-08-17T13:46:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9832"},"modified":"2009-08-17T13:46:00","modified_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","slug":"install-windows-from-usb-2-0-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9832","title":{"rendered":"Install Windows From USB 2.0 Key"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I\u2019m typing, I\u2019m installing a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V server from a USB stick.\u00a0 Why would you consider doing this?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Have you noticed how many server suppliers consider a DVD drive to be an option now?\u00a0 With money being tight, everyone wants to save a few bucks.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s a pain to burn DVD\u2019s for the occasional install.\u00a0 And I can never find a DVD-RW.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>However, 4GB USB flash sticks are pretty cheap and common now.\u00a0 Heck, most of the USB memory or thumb drives that I have were free at events, etc.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to burn the ISO I downloaded from Microsoft but didn\u2019t want to go searching for a DVD-RW.\u00a0 I knew the Windows installer could be put onto a USB; I was given the Windows 7 RC on a 4GB USB and had installed from that.\u00a0 What I\u2019m going to do now should be feasible with Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to use a USB instead of a DVD to \u201cburn\u201d an image and install Windows from a USB 2.0 stick.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Download the ISO from Microsoft for the version of Windows you want to deploy.<\/li>\n<li>Install something like Virtual CloneDrive to mount the ISO.\u00a0 We\u2019ll call this the G: drive, for example.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure there\u2019s nothing valuable on your 4GB+ USB 2.0 stick and insert it into your admin PC.\u00a0 That might be the I: drive.<\/li>\n<li>Fire up command prompt with \u201crun as administrator\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Run DISKPART.\u00a0 Then run the following sub commands:<\/li>\n<li>List disk.\u00a0 <em>Identify the USB stick, e.g. #1<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Select disk 1.<em>\u00a0 Using disk #1<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Clean<\/li>\n<li>Create partition primary<\/li>\n<li>Select partition 1<\/li>\n<li>Active.\u00a0 <\/li>\n<li>Format quick fs=fat32.\u00a0 <em>That gives us a quick format FAT32 file system on the USB stick<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Assign.\u00a0 <em>We now have a bootable USB drive.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Exit.\u00a0 <em>The disk is now prepared.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>You now need to copy the contents of the mounted ISO (G:) onto the USB stick (I:).\u00a0 Do that by running: xcopy g:*.* \/s\/e\/f i:<\/li>\n<li>That will take a while.\u00a0 Once it\u2019s complete you have a USB that you can install windows from.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure your machine can boot from USB.\u00a0 Insert the USB stick and boot it up.\u00a0 be sure that either the boot device is the USB (may require a prompt or a boot order configuration, depending on the BIOS).\u00a0 The machine should boot from USB and load up the WindowsPE for installing the version Windows from your ISO.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you\u2019re installing lots of machines then you should check out the network installation methods:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WDS: Windows Deployment Services<\/li>\n<li>MDT: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit<\/li>\n<li>ConfigMgr: Configuration Manager 2007<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I\u2019m typing, I\u2019m installing a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V server from a USB stick.\u00a0 Why would you consider doing this? Have you noticed how many server suppliers consider a DVD drive to be an option now?\u00a0 With money being tight, everyone wants to save a few bucks. It\u2019s a pain to burn DVD\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9832\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Install Windows From USB 2.0 Key&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-windows-server"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}