How to Make a Bootable USB Flash Drive Using Diskpart

Table of Contents:

1. Create a bootable USB flash drive using the Diskpart utility
2. How to use Diskpart

1. Create a bootable USB flash drive using the Diskpart utility.

A user may want to create a bootable USB flash drive which has a larger partition than the maximum 2 GB created using the Dell Diagnostic Distribution Package (DDDP), see Article How to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive using Dell Diagnostic Deployment Package (DDDP).

Diskpart can be used to create a partition larger than 2 GB on the USB flash drive so larger files can be used. Diskpart is a Disk Partition utility available within Windows.

Follow the steps in the next section on how to use Diskpart to create a bootable Windows USB flash drive:

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2. How to use Diskpart.

1. Insert your USB flash drive (4 GB or larger preferable) into your system.

2. Go to the Command Prompt. Select Start and type CMD in the search field, right click CMD.exe and select Run as administrator.
   Alternatively, go to Start > All programs > Accessories > right click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

3. A User Account Control (UAC) dialog Window may appear. Click Yes to Continue.

4. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following commands followed by Enter:

5. DISKPART - This starts the utility.

6. LIST DISK - This shows the disk number of your USB flash drive. In the image below the USB flash drive shows as Disk 2.

7. SELECT DISK X (Replace X with your USB flash drive number, we are using 2 in this example).

8. CLEAN - This wipes the drive.

9. CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY - Creates a partition.

10. SELECT PARTITION 1 - Selects partition 1.

11. ACTIVE - Marks the current partition as active.

12. FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK - This formats the partition.

13. ASSIGN - Assigns a drive letter.

14. EXIT

Insert your Windows DVD into the optical drive.
From Command Prompt, enter the following:

g:  (Where "g" is your DVD drive letter)
cd boot (changes to boot directory)
G:\boot bootsect /nt60 d:  (Where "d" is your USB drive letter)

Copy all files from the Windows CD to the USB flash drive using xcopy

cd\ 
G:\xcopy g:\*.* /s/h/f  f:\ 

This copies the Windows installation files onto the USB flash drive, it may take several minutes.

xcopy switches are as follows:

/s - Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
/h - Copies hidden and system files.
/f - Displays full source and destination filenames while copying.

To display the full list of switches, type xcopy /? <enter>

This makes the USB drive bootable. When selected at startup, it boots straight into the Windows installation.

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