If you have a netbook or a more sizeable notebook that does not come with an optical drive you may find yourself in a quandary when attempting to reinstall Windows from scratch. When I bought my netbook it came with Windows XP which made me feel like crying until I worked out how to put Windows 7 on it using a rather manual process. Sure, you can resort to booting off the network but that can be beyond a good percentage of the tech gurus out there.
However, there is a way to use your humble USB drive to fill the void using a nifty little tool called WinToFlash (which I would have loved to have had the first time I reinstalled Windows on the netbook).
In a nutshell, WinToFlash will copy the content of your Windows installation disc to your USB drive of choice and make it a bootable device. Simply copying the files over won’t make it bootable and unless you know how to make a USB drive bootable you’re going to be stuck. As far as the interface goes it’s fairly simply to use and contains a wizard to guide you through the process.
Also, bear in mind that your computer will need to be capable of booting from a USB device. Most modern computers released in the last couple of years will have this capability but it can’t hurt to double check either in your documentation or in the BIOS/CMOS settings. The other thing you will need to remember is that you might need to change the boot device order to put USB devices ahead of the hard drive (steps will vary across various brands and models of computers). Otherwise, you’ll need to manually choose a boot device upon startup (some of the popular keys are F1, F2 or F12 but your computer may actually tell you what to press to select a boot device).
WinToFlash certainly does make things easier than attempting to “roll your own” USB installation medium and avoid the hassle of learning how to create one. WinToFlash works with Windows XP and later (right up to Windows 7).
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