How to install Vista from a flash drive.

This is more of a clarification than anything else. This isn't going to be an indepth guide but hopefully will clarify some things for some of the less tech savy on the board.

My main motivation for doing this was I bought a Thinkpad X61 second hand without a dock. I didn't want to spend $60 on an external DVD drive just to install windows(everything else can be done through virtual drives which I can do a guide on if requested). If your cheap like me this is a way to save a few bucks.

This can also be useful if you need to reinstall Windows on several machines around the house as once you have it on the flash drive it installs much faster that from the DVD, but this will vary depending on the speed of your flash drive. Also it can make slipstreaming easier without burning a bunch of DVD's until you get it right.

First what you are going to need, which isn't much.

1. A Vista DVD.
2. A 4GB or larger flash drive.

That's it.

This will erase the information on you flash drive so back it up somewhere. Not on the machine you are getting ready to install Vista onto!!!

Now start by following Stallen's superb Vista fresh install guide. Link

The rest is from Kurt Shintaku's guide here.

If your not very familiar with drive letters and DOS this can leave you with a lot of answers which is what I am hoping to clear up.

To start insert your flash drive and Windows DVD into your PC. Kill any pop-ups that come up.

First open a DOS(not really but close enough) window by clicking the Vista Orb and typing cmd in the search area.

This is going to bring up another DOS like window.

Now type diskpart

This will bring up another DOS like window.

Now type list disk in the new window. The rest of the commands will go in the same window.

This is going to give you a list of all the disk's in your system, including you flash drive.

Now pay attention here an note which one is your flash drive. Just look at the sizes and match what you drive is. Mine is a 4GB which equates to 3914MB in this window.

Now type select disk X where X is the number of your flash drive.

This is going to tell Windows to perform the following directions on that drive, which will essentially erase it which is why you want to make sure you have selection the correct drive. It would probably ruin your week if you erased your C: drive huh?

Now type clean

I don't really know what this does but it's a step.

Now type create partition primary

This is pretty self explanatory, it creates a primary partition on your flash drive.

Now type select partition 1

This tells Windows to select that partition. Use 1 here, it doesn't vary.

Now type active

This makes that partition the active partition.

Now type f ormat fs=fat32

This will format that partition into FAT32. This will take a few minutes so grab a snack or cup of coffee.

Now type assign

This will assign a drive letter to your newly formatted flash drive, make to to make note of this.

Now type exit

Now we are done getting our flash drive ready to load Windows onto and will leave diskpart and take you back to the DOS prompt.

In the DOS window type xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

This will copy the Vista DVD to your flash drive.
Now this will vary depending on your set-up so lets take a look a little closer.

d is the drive letter of where your Vista DVD is. The last e is the drive letter of your flash drive. If you are not sure just click the Vista Orb and computer and have a look. In my case these were e and g respectively. Depending on the amount of hard drives and optical drives you have these will be different. The middle letters ( /s/e/f) are commands and do not vary.

This will take a while so now would be a good time to take the dog for a walk.

Now you flash drive is loaded and ready to install windows. But first you need to go into your laptops BIOS and get it to boot from the flash drive. This will vary from PC to PC but in general while it is booting it will tell you what button to push to get into the BIOS, usually F1 or delete.

Now you need to find the boot order. Again this varies so you will just need to look around. Now move you USB drive to the top. Now save and exit.

At this point you laptop should start booting into the Windows installer. Now just go back to Stallen's guide to complete the process. If you haven't guessed so far you really need two flash drives. One for Vista and they other for drivers and to back up the serial number from Stallen's guide.

After Vista loads and your machine restarts you wll need to enter the BIOS again reorder the boot order and put your hard drive back at the top or it will go back to your flash drive again and try to get you to re-install windows yet again.

Now you have installed Vista without buying a DVD drive!

I hope this was clear and of some help. If you have any questions feel free to post here or PM me. I keep some crazy hours so it may take me a bit to get back to you but I will.