Install Windows Vista from USB Flash Drive

Most machine nowadays has built-in USB 2.0 hi speed port and able to boot from USB flash drive . But not all machine has CD/DVD-ROM. The following method prepares a USB flash drive for Windows Vista installation: Requirements:

1. A USB flash drive supports USB 2.0 with size of 4G (able to hold a Windows Vista ISO)
2. A machine support USB 2.0 and bootable from USB flash drive

Steps to prepares a USB flash drive from Windows Vista machine:

1. Insert USB Flash drive
2. Run CMD from administrator account (or run as administrator)
3. The following commands are run within diskpart:
1. list disk (to list all disk in system including USB flash drive, identify your USB flash drive disk number here)
2. select disk 1 (assume USB flash drive is disk number 1)
3. clean (clean all partition in USB flash drive)
4. create partition primary (create a primary partition in USB flash drive)
5. select partition 1 (select the newly created partition)
6. active (mark the partition active)
7. format fs=fat32 (format the partition with FAT32 file system)
8. assign (assign a drive letter to the partition, assume is drive E:)
9. exit (quit diskpart utility)
4. Insert Windows Vista DVD-ROM or mount the Windows Vista ISO file to drive D:
5. Copy all file and folders from Windows Vista DVD-ROM to USB Flash drive:
1. xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\
6. Safely remove the USB flash drive from your machine
7. Plug the USB flash drive to new machine for Windows Vista Installation
8. Make sure you try to reboot the machine with USB Booting
9. Enjoy and start Windows Vista installation from USB flash drive without DVD-ROM

Reference:

1. HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive