Hello Folks, It’s a great Sunday morning (at the time of writing) and I’m in a really good mood. I am very excited to present you an exciting article with a happy smile. 🙂 Today I’ll tell you how to create a Windows 7 bootable USB very quickly. Before that here’s a story. Last evening for me was a horror; I had brought a client’s hard disk to format Windows 7; had a Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-bit edition DVD in my CD rack. Well just like any normal computer technician I connected the hard disk to my PC to format Windows; everything went well until I was stuck onto this ‘Setup is starting’ screen for probably 20 minutes or so (It takes almost 30 seconds and spending 20 minutes here really pissed me off).

I really thought it must be problem with the DVD. That’s you’ll see why I think DVDs and DVD Drives should die. I have used this DVD for more than a year, and scratches were all over it. I then borough-ed another DVD from a friend of mine but still I was stuck onto the same ‘Setup is Starting’ screen; even my friend’s DVD too was scratched more than mine. (all this time I was cursing my luck). I then realized I need to create a Windows 7 bootable USB. I knew how to create one but searched for the tool I needed. As I had forgotten name of that particular software to create a Windows 7 bootable USB. But the website I encountered, didn’t had this article covered in details. Any newbie wouldn’t understand it quicker. So I thought I should come up with an easy and simple article to create Windows 7 bootable USB in just under 9 minutes or so. I’ve made this article so simple that it would be walk in the park even for a newbie. So sit straight, eyes on the screen and here we start.

Step I – Download Windows 7 SP1 ISO pack

The first step is very simple.

You need to download Windows 7 Operating System ISO pack. The below link contains Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate.

*** DOWNLOAD FROM HERE *** (visit the website and scroll down to download latest Windows 7 SP1 update)

But if you already have Windows 7 ISO file then well and good. You can easily move to the Next Step.

Step II – Download Windows 7 bootable USB tool

If you’ve downloaded the Windows 7 OS or you already have it. You further need to download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

This tool is responsible to transfer Windows 7 OS into your USB pen drive.

Download it and keep it on your desktop.

Step III – Attach a USB Pen drive

Well the most obvious step here is to attach an USB Pen Drive.

After you attach your pen drive. Format it.

Right click on Pen-Drive drive; click on format; un-tick Quick Format and format your USB pen drive. (As easy as I said)

Step IV – Open Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

• This is how the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool looks like. A simple basic tool.
  
  After you open the tool. Click on Browse and locate the Windows 7 OS ISO file and click on Next
• After you click on Next. You’ll be greeted with this screen.
  
  Since we need to create a Windows 7 bootable USB; click on USB device.
• The software will automatically detect every USB Pen Drive connected to your computer. Select the one in which you want to copy Windows 7 OS ISO file and click on Begin Copying
  
• If you haven’t format the pen drive. The tool will ask your permission to erase data from it and will immediately start the copying process and create a Windows 7 bootable USB.
  

Now to finish copying it would take somewhere between 5 to 15 minutes depending on various factors. For me it took almost 8 minutes to complete the entire process.

But…

What if you have a DVD loaded with Windows 7 OS? Files as shown in the image below.

Now since you have the original setup files. You wouldn’t want to download the setup in ISO format again.

The scenario was very same for me. I too had these setup files and couldn’t waste my time and bandwidth to download the same files again.

And the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool only accepts ISO files. So what can you do now?

Don’t worry! Only one simple step will be added to this procedure. We need a software which handles ISO files. All you need to do now is download PowerISO

PowerISO is a paid tool. It has 30-day trial period. Download it and activate the trial version. Below is a video which will help you with Power ISO installation.

Now assuming that you’ve installed PowerISO I move to another step.

Select all the files; right click and add them to image file as shown in picture above.

Select .iso as image extension and click on OK. The whole process to create an ISO file of these setup files might take somewhere between 6-10 minutes.

IMPORTANT: If Windows 7 Setup files are in DVD. Copy them to your internal hard disk and then try the above process.

After following the above step. You’ve created a yourself a Windows 7 ISO file from which you can create Windows 7 bootable USB.

What If?…

Now that you’ve created yourself an ISO file. You load this file into Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool and might get this error.

Obviously you would want to give up at this point. But Don’t worry I’ll show you how to solve this problem too.

Open the newly created ISO file. Click on File -> Image Properties (follow the below image)

Inside Image Properties; you’ll see a lot of confusing options. (Me too get confused)

Refer the image below and tick UDF (circled in image) which makes it a valid ISO file.

Click OK and then again try to add this file to Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. Now follow all the steps shown above and I know you’d be done with this FINALLY!.

I hope you all liked the tutorial. I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible. I’ve used images, video so that even a newbie could understand it. Therefore don’t forget to show me some love. Share this article on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and help your friends too.

If you have any queries or didn’t understand any step. Feel to free to comment below. I’ll answer you as early as possible.

Have a great day everybody…