How to install Windows 8 to a USB drive.

[L.E.D]

I have been searching high and low till I pieced this together... So here it is, How to install Windows 8 to a USB drive.

 

Install Windows 8 to a USB drive.

 

Needed:     1.USB Drive (Atleast 8GB - 32GB/USB3 is recommended)

                  2.Windows 8 DVD (Legal Copy)

                  3.ImageX (http://www.mediafire.com/download/zo7s36avbekclbo/imagex.exe - You're welcome)

 

 

1. Plug in USB drive.

2. Insert Windows 8 DVD.

3. Open command prompt. ( With elevated permissions )

4. Enter a series of commands as such.

                I) diskpart

                I) list disk

5. Locate the USB drive and remember the number. ( In my case it was #3 )

6. Enter a series of commands as such.

                I) select disk #   (# would be the number of our USB drive.)

                I) clean

                I) create partition primary

                I) select partition 1

                I) active

                I) format fs=ntfs quick

                I) assign

                I) exit

7. So now we need to use ImageX to write Windows 8 to the USB drive by using command prompt. Move ImageX to your desktop. Enter as follows.

               

                I) C:\User\You\Desktop\imagex.exe /apply F:\Sources\install.wim 1 H:

 

Let me explain this.

 

Where "You" is you will replace that with your username. For myself it would be, "Nathan".

Where "F" is you will replace that with your DVD drives letter.  For myself that is F:

Now for the "H:" at the end, That is your USB drive. It could be a number of different letters. Again, Choose yours.

 

8. There is one more step. We need to make the USB bootable, to do this we type the following into the command prompt.

 

                I) bcdboot.exe G:\windows /s G: /f all

 

Again. You would replace "G" with your USB's drive letter.

 

Once that completes you are finished.

 

 

[AMICLG]

Nice TUT but I personally recommend people to use Universal USB Installer out of it's simplicity and awesome support for just about every OS besides Mac OSX.

[L.E.D]

Nice TUT but I personally recommend people to use Universal USB Installer out of it's simplicity and awesome support for just about every OS besides Mac OSX.

 

Thanks, I haven't heard of it... even with all my digging.... oh well. This woks 100%, I am using it now. I kinda wish I had a big USB drive. Using a micro SD card is slow !

[AMICLG]

Thanks, I haven't heard of it... even with all my digging.... oh well. This woks 100%, I am using it now. I kinda wish I had a big USB drive. Using a micro SD card is slow !

A 4gb usb 3.0 drive is all you need for installing windows and they're super cheap and you wouldn't have found it unless you were searching for how to install Linux.

[GoodBytes]

Nice, but I just use Windows 7 ISO to USB tool. Much easier. Works with all Vista, 7, and 8 64-bit no issue on my side.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

[L.E.D]

A 4gb usb 3.0 drive is all you need for installing windows and they're super cheap and you wouldn't have found it unless you were searching for how to install Linux.

 

Sure the drive is cheap but I don't have USB 3 on my computer... and no... I found that when I was looking to install windows 8 on a USB drive.

 

Nice, but I just use Windows 7 ISO to USB tool. Much easier. Works with all Vista, 7, and 8 64-bit no issue on my side.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

 

I was looking at that but I couldn't think last night ( too tired ) that was just easier to me.

[AMICLG]

Sure the drive is cheap but I don't have USB 3 on my computer... 

 

 

Yes but the flash drive will preform better anyway making for a faster install and they're like $2 more so why not.

[L.E.D]

Yes but the flash drive will preform better anyway making for a faster install and they're like $2 more so why not.

 

Yeah no doubt about the speed increase, the only thing holding me back is the fact that I don't have the money to buy a new PC.

[AMICLG]

Yeah no doubt about the speed increase, the only thing holding me back is the fact that I don't have the money to buy a new PC.

I know the feeling lol.

[L.E.D]

I know the feeling lol.

 

Yeah, It sucks a lot.. I always see new hardware that I have no way of getting, by the time I would have enough money to buy the hardware there would probably be 2 more generations of hardware.. gotta love how fast technology moves...