How to make bootable USB drive for Windows XP or Windows 7

There are numbers of process available to make bootable USB drive to install Windows XP and Windows 7. One of the most popular and easiest process is to make bootable pen drive using PowerISO tools. The following steps are to be done to make a bootable usb drive for installing windows xp or 7.

Step1: Creating Bootable USB Drive:

1. Download and install PowerISO (v4.8 or newer version).
2. Start PowerISO from your desktop shortcut.
3. Insert the pen drive you want to boot from.
4. Then go to the menu and select “Tools — > Create Bootable USB Drive”. The “Create Bootable USB Drive” dialog will popup. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system, you need confirm the UAC (User Account Control) dialog to continue.
5. In “Create Bootable USB Drive” dialog choose the source iso file of windows xp or windows 7 from your hard disk by clicking “…” button.
6. Choose the correct USB disk drive from the “Destination USB Drive” dropdown box if multiple USB drives are connected to the computer.
7. Choose the writing method to create bootable USB. “USB-HDD” which is highly recommended.
8. Click “Start” button to start creating windows xp/Windows 7 bootable USB drive. Keep one thing in mind that after clicking the start button a pop-up message will come and all the pen drive content will be deleted.

If no errors occurred in the above process, you should now be all set to setup Windows xp or windows 7 from USB drive. Now you have to go through the step 2 to change the BIOS configuration

Step 2: Setup the BIOS configuration:

Now you have to reboot your computer and go into the BIOS configuration menu to set the booting order from USB. The BIOS setup is varies from system to system, but generally the following setup can be done.

1. Restart your computer.
2. At the boot screen press F2 or DEL button (Hotkey instructions are generally provided on the screen) and get into the BIOS configuration menu.
3. Then go to the boot menu and change the booting order. Set the highest booting priority to the USB drive (from which you want to install).
4. Then save and exit (Pressing F10 key) from boot menu and computer will automatically restart.
5. After restart the system will automatically boot (start installing) from USB drive.
6. After completion of installation please unplug the USB from your system and restart the computer.

If you properly setup your BIOS and your USB drive supports booting, then Windows xp or windows 7 will start loading. Depending on the speed of your processor and USB drive, this may take few minutes.

If the booting isn’t started, then make double-check of the following steps before try something else:

a) Whether you’ve configured the BIOS properly for booting from the USB drive? (i.e. the USB device listed in the booting list and does it have the first booting priority?)
b) Have you correctly prepared the USB drive for booting which is described in the step one? (Restart the procedure.)
c) Check whether your pen drive does support being booted from? (Try with another pen drive!)

To get the PowerISO tool click here.