Trying to build reliable bootable usb with Windows 7 installer

watsonandr · 05 Sep 2017

I have spent a few weeks trying to build a reliable bootable usb with win7 installer.
I have found that its a tricky and unfathomed area.

Discussion points:
Win7 32 installer does not like usb sticks above 16gb in size. (on the create partition screen - is unable to create hdd partition)

Win7 installer places boot information on random disks during the install this means your bootable usb might end up having bcd records on it. A read only usb in ntfs might help?

Win7 installer cannot distinguish between a hard disk drive and some brands of usb drive - and will not create a partition for windows on that step

win7 installer needs modding -the partition creation screen is misleading - it shows disks (not including the usb drive?_ andafter this step does not use this information but automatically trys to decide which disk to use.

AddRAM · 05 Sep 2017

Not sure why you're having issues, we`ve been using W7 USB installers for years.

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

WiNToBootic bootable usb drive windows vista/7/8 - Bootable USB | Bootable USB

All you need is the Iso file and a 4GB stick. Anything larger would be a waste.

As far as destination disks goes, you should NEVER have any other drives plugged in except the target disk/drive/ssd etc

watsonandr · 15 Jan 2018

Thanks for that AddRAM

I got one working on a 8gb stick ok, and working with USB 3.0 by adding some drivers.

I was dissapointed I could not get multiple O/S (10 and xp) install isos on the same stick booting
Win 7 and Win 10 needs to have a certain file in the root of the usb stick it seems.