There has got to be a way to create a bootable USB drive using Windows! In this article I will describe how to do it with nothing more than the Windows DVD and a separate Windows workstation. First of all, I hate that HP utility that needs a floppy. What the tarnation is that? If you don’t have a DVD of a floppy drive you need this method.
Before we begin you will need to know a few things. You will need to know the drive letters of your drives such as the DVD drive with the Windows 7 media, the drive letter the USB stick.
WARNING: The drive letter of the USB drive might change during this process.
WARNING: All information on your USB drive will be erased.
WARNING: Your USB drive must be large enough to store the content of your DVD drive. (3 GB or larger)
WARNING: This article assumes you have significant administrative experience and understand the consequences of each command. Proceed at your own risk.
Task 1: Making the USB drive an Active Primary Partition.
- Open a command prompt (with administrative rights if required by your OS).
- At the command Prompt type Diskpart and press enter
- Type List Disk and press enter
- You will see a list of all the disks on your computer.. A number will identify each disk.
- If you do not know which disk is you USB drive go through the list by typing Select Disk 1 enter and then type details. repeat until you know you are on the right USB drive. Hint: It is probably the last one.
- Type select disk 4* and press enter. The system will report: “Disk 4* is now selected” (*Where disk 4 is the number of the USB drive, change this number to reflect your system).
- Type Clean and press enter. The system will report “DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.” This will remove the disk from your current drive letter for your USB.
- Type create partition primary and press enter. The system will report “DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.”
- Type select partition 1 and press enter. The system will report “Partition 1 is now the selected partition.”
- Type active and press enter. The system will report “DiskPart Marked the current partition as active.”
- Type assign and press enter. The system will report “DiskPart successfully assigned a drive letter …”
- Type detail disk and press enter. Details will be listed and under the column heading “LTR” you will see the drive letter. I will assume it is U: for the remainder of the explanation.
- Type exit and press enter. This will leave the DiskPart context.
Task 2: Formating the USB Drive and copying the install files.
- If the command prompt is not still open, open the command prompt.
- Type format U: /fs:fat32 /q and press enter. (Where U: is the letter of your USB Drive)
- A warning will appear indicating all information on the drive will be lost. Type Y and press enter.
- You will be prompted to enter a label for the drive. Press enter to continue.
- We have now formatted the drive and can proceed to copying the files. Assuming Drive d: for DVD and Drive u: for USB
- Type xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f u:\ . The files will copy and may take a long time depending on the USB drive performance.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/jeffloucks/archive/2009/10/08/creating-usb-bootable-using-diskpart-and-using-it-to-install-windows-7.aspx