How to transfer the necessary information from a CD or DVD to a flash drive. Write data from optical discs to flash drives Rewrite Windows 7 from disk to flash drive

If there are problems with Windows 7, it is not always possible to reinstall the operating system from a disk. The reason for this may be the absence of a disk drive or its failure. Since disk drives are now used less and less, people are in no hurry to repair them or replace them with new ones. Therefore, there must be an alternative boot option, and it can be done from a flash drive.

Beginners try to copy the contents of the boot disk to a USB drive or transfer a disk image with distribution kits there, but nothing works. After copying files and folders, the computer does not try to install Windows 7. This is not surprising, since the flash drive must be bootable in order for the operating system distribution to begin installing from it. You can create a bootable USB drive using third-party applications or the built-in Windows 7 utility.

Using the built-in disk utility

This is the most difficult method, but it does not require downloading and installing third-party programs. In order to start working with a flash drive, you need to:

  1. Open the Start menu.
  2. Click on “Run” (you can press Win+R instead).
  3. In the window that opens, write “cmd” (do not write quotes).
  4. Click on “OK”.

In the command line window that appears, enter “diskpart” and press “Enter.” It should be remembered that the flash drive must be connected to the computer before carrying out all these procedures. After calling this command, the window should look like this:

The computer name is underlined in the screenshot. In your case, this place should be the name of your computer.

Now you need to display a list of drives connected to your computer. This is done with the "list disk" command. By entering the command and pressing “Enter”, you can see a list of disks.

You can identify a flash drive by its capacity. In this case, this is disk 1. Before continuing, you need to make sure that the selected device is a flash drive, otherwise you can mistakenly delete information on another disk. Next you need to select a disk. In this example, the command will look like “select disk 1”, but instead of one you must enter the number of your flash drive. After entering the command and pressing Enter, a line will be displayed confirming that the drive is selected.

To clean a removable disk, use the “clean” command.

Windows 7 should now create a new partition on the selected drive. This is done with the “create partition primary” command.

The new partition must first be selected, made active, and then formatted. This is done with the commands:

  1. To select - “select partition 1”.
  2. Make active - “active”.
  3. For formatting - “format fs=NTFS” (NTFS file system).

After formatting is completed, you need to assign a letter to the flash drive. This is done with the “assign” command. There is no need to specify the letter itself; it will be determined automatically by the system.

You need to finish working with the utility with the “exit” command.

After these steps, the removable disk became bootable. If you open it through File Explorer, you won't notice any changes. but now you can install Windows 7 from such a disk. To do this, you should copy the operating system distribution from the DVD to a flash drive. There is no need to create any images. Simply copying files and folders is enough. By connecting the removable drive to the computer before turning it on, you can install Windows 7 from it. The main thing is not to forget to set boot from a USB drive in the BIOS settings.

Those who find it difficult to work with the command line can use third-party applications to create a disk image with the distribution kit on a flash drive.

Working with UltraISO

The Ultraiso application is designed to work with disks and their images. It is paid, but with a trial period. This period is quite enough to create a boot disk for yourself. However, to work with the application you need to create a disk image with the distribution in *.iso format. If you already have such an image, you can use it. If it is missing, you should create an image in any application intended for this purpose for Windows 7 or in Ultraiso itself.

To create an image in Ultraiso there is a special button, which can be seen in the screenshot:

Also, to perform this action, you can go to the “Tools” menu and select “Create a CD image...” or press the F8 key. In the window that appears you need to:

  • select drive;
  • specify the folder to save the image;
  • mark output format (ISO);
  • click the “Make” button.

The process of creating a Windows 7 distribution image will begin.

After it is completed, the required file will be located in the specified folder.

Now you need:

  • go to the menu “File” - “Open”;
  • find the file with the image;
  • click the “Open” button.

Before doing this, you need to remember to connect the USB flash drive. Next, go to the “Boot” menu - “Burn hard disk image...”.

In the window that appears, click the “Format” button, and after formatting is completed, click the “Write” button.

After recording, you can find files and folders of the Windows 7 distribution on the removable disk. If they were copied there in the usual way, the flash drive would not become bootable, and it would be impossible to install the operating system from it. But now this is easy to do by connecting the device to the desired computer.

Working with UNetbootin

Unetbootin is another application with which you can create a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows 7 distribution. After launching the program, you need to:

  1. Check "Disk Image".
  2. Specify the path to the folder in which it is located.
  3. Click "OK".

You should wait until the image is written to the flash drive. After that, you can test it in practice by trying to install Windows 7 from it.

You can find many other utilities designed for installation on flash drives of Windows 7 distributions. However, you should not download all these applications. The three methods described are sufficient to create a bootable USB flash drive. They have been tested in practice and do not cause any complaints. Most third-party applications are a good way to “reward” your computer with some kind of virus. If you use them, you will acquire additional problems with the software.

Hi all! Today is an interesting topic, how to burn a disc to a flash drive! In general we read)

How to transfer from disk to flash drive?

I sometimes look at the website statistics and see what people are interested in. I have a popular topic, and usually people are looking for how to burn an image to a flash drive, and then I see a request: how to burn a disk to a flash drive... To be honest, the request sounds strange, but when I looked at how many people are trying to find how I do it, I was a little surprised, they thousands... On the site I write topics that people are interested in or need, for note) Well, here, of course, is the first option and I hope this topic will be useful to many who are looking for how to burn a disc to a flash drive 🙂

At first I also thought whether such a program had really been written, but no, I couldn’t even find it on foreign sites, it wouldn’t be safe anyway)

1. First we make a disk image

I haven’t written an article about the UltraISO program yet, but now the time has come, I just have a portable version.

Launch it, insert the disc into the CD-DVD-ROM and select create a CD image.

Now we select your flash drive, format it if necessary, but when recording, the program itself will format the flash drive and click write.

All! Myth how to burn a disc to a flash drive destroyed :)

23.08.2012

To be honest, I'm tired of the good old optical drives. Optical discs have many disadvantages - scratches, drives that gradually lose their condition, and loss of properties when exposed to direct sunlight. But some of the functions can be transferred to another type of media. For example, by creating a “flash drive” with the Windows 7 distribution. Convenient and reliable.

Why was I puzzled by this idea of ​​​​making an installation flash drive with Windows 7? It's simple. One fine day, my good old disk with Windows XP, bought a long time ago and still in use, despite the migration to Windows 7, died for a long time.


No, it did not become unreadable and did not become covered with a web of scratches, as often happens when handled carelessly. It simply cracked, apparently having exhausted its service life. However, I didn’t want to say goodbye to the paid license, and I didn’t want to lose the distribution. At that moment, the thought of transferring the “installer” to another medium arose in my head and remained wandering there. Once again it surfaced after a sobbing neighbor knocked on my door, having killed the Windows 7 operating system on his newly purchased netbook with inappropriate actions. Naturally, I agreed to help him, but when my cheerful neighbor ran to get the long-suffering “beech” and, naturally, a couple of bottles of beer (Friday evening, after all), I, picking up this work, remembered that such devices are not equipped with optical drives .

However, there was a way out of this situation; you just need to connect an external drive, and the problem is solved. However, neither I nor the lucky owner of a netbook had such a device, and I also had no desire to go to my work to get this unit. As a result, the only correct thought in this case came into my head. You need to make an installation flash drive! I’ll say right away, not without some suffering, but it was possible, and therefore, having decided to make life easier for other sufferers, I decided to write this small step-by-step instructions.
So, we will experiment with an image of the original disk with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. However, no one is stopping you from doing this with another distribution of Windows 7, 8 or Vista (if there is a desperate lover of this “quiet horror”)

Tools and equipment

What will we need for this event? First of all, of course, an installation disk with one of the above operating systems, or, even better, their image in iso format. You also need a flash drive with a capacity of at least four gigabytes, since the size of the distribution kit for the latest versions of Microsoft operating systems is not at all modest in size. And of course, you can’t do without a working computer with Windows 7 or Vista installed. Considering that there are three variations of creating a bootable flash drive, in different cases we will need different software products. I'll look at them separately:

Option 1: the simplest. Here you only need the UltraISO program, which can be downloaded from http://www.ezbsystems.com/dl1.php?file=uiso9_pe.exe. Despite the fact that it is paid, the trial version will be sufficient for our purposes, so feel free to download it.

Option 2: more complex. Here you will already need your eyes, head and hands, as well as a simple 7-zip archiver, which can be downloaded from this link. Although, you can do without the 7-zip program and do everything exclusively using Windows. Many users, especially not very advanced ones, may have difficulties. Although, for old fighters who still love the command line, this option will seem simpler, and most importantly convenient - due to the absence of the need to use third-party software.

Option 3: Using a utility from Microsoft designed specifically for creating installation flash drives with a copy of Windows. You can download it at http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/uk/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe. This option is simple to the point of disgrace, but it has one feature - the BIOS of not every motherboard can be recognized by the installer on a drive made using this utility.

Begin

Option 1. In this case, you won’t need to make any particularly complex movements. It's simple. We launch the downloaded and installed UltraISO program using the trial period. Its functionality and operating time are enough for us.


First of all, you need to tell the program where the operating system image is located in .iso format; to do this, click “File > Open”, or use the “Ctrl+O” hotkey. It is very important here that it is an image and not an optical disk. Therefore, if you only have the latter, before starting work you will have to remove the image from it using the capabilities of the same UltraISO (“Tools > Create CD image”), or using one of the many utilities, for example Alcohol 120%.


So, we have a Windows image, and it has already been loaded into our program. We begin to create an installation flash drive, which by this moment should already take its place in the USB port. Now go to the menu “Boot > Burn hard disk image”.

In the window that appears, in the “Disc Drive” field, select your drive on which the Windows installer will be placed, and click on the “Format” button. Naturally, at this moment, your flash drive should not have any important data for you, since all of it will be lost during formatting. Formatting is quite fast, and therefore we leave the checkbox in this item, but change the file system type to NTFS, and click on the “Start” button.


After a few seconds, formatting will be completed and by clicking “ok”, you will again be taken to the UltraISO menu, where you will need to click on the “Burn” button. After several confirmations that you really want to do what you want using the usual button labeled “Yes”, all you have to do is wait until the flash drive is created with the Windows installer you need, completely ready to go.


Option 2. In this option it will be more complicated, because the DiskPart utility built into Windows, which we will use, does not have an interface and works only from the command line. However, even for beginners, doing everything according to these instructions will not be difficult.


Let's start by preparing the flash drive. The process begins by launching the command line. This can be done either by clicking “Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt”, or by calling the “Run” menu using the “Win ​​+ R” combination and writing “cmd” there and pressing Enter. Now we enter the commands sequentially, not forgetting to press the same Enter afterwards. Enter only what is in italics, there is no need to write a slash and what follows it!

diskpart/ call the utility of the same name
list disk/ call up a list of disks available in the system
In the table that appears, you need to find the device to which you are going to copy the Windows installer. This can be done based on the size of the drive. At this point, it is important not to make a mistake and in the next line, instead of X, enter the number of your device.
select disk X/ select the disk that we will use as the installation disk.
clean/ using this command we clear it
create partition primary/ create a partition on the disk
select partition 1/ select the created partition
active/ mark the section as active
format fs=NTFS/ and format it in the NTFS file system. This naturally takes some time, so be patient and do not remove the flash drive from the connector.
After formatting is completed, you need to assign a drive letter. There are two options here: either set a fixed value with the command
assign letter=z/ where instead of Z there can be any other letter of the Latin alphabet unoccupied by hard drives and optical drives. Or leave the assignment of the letter to the discretion of the operating system. In the latter case, just enter the assign command.
This completes the preparation of the drive. Enter the command:
exit/ to exit the Disk part utility, since we won’t need anything else from it.


At this stage, after we have prepared our flash drive, we have two options for continuing the development of events, that is, transferring the Windows distribution and boot sector to it. The first option is simple and convenient, but requires you to have a 7-zip archiver installed and a disk image in .iso format, since this trick will not work with an optical disk. So, in order to transfer everything that is required to the drive, you just need to right-click on the disk image file, go to the 7-zip menu, and select “Extract files”, and specify as the location where the archive will be unpacked your flash drive. Once the unpacking process is complete, you can remove the flash drive from the connector and use it for its intended purpose.


However, there is a more complex path that requires returning to the command line. I have already described how to get there, and therefore I will not repeat myself, and will go directly to the commands that need to be used. Before doing this, do not forget to insert the Windows installer disk into the drive, or mount the image into a virtual drive. We remember which letters you have assigned to the drive with the Windows disk, and the flash drive to which you want to transfer the installer, and begin the process. First of all, we transfer the boot sector from the disk to the flash drive by entering the following commands, where you replace X with the letter of your drive, and Y with the letter of your flash drive:

X:/ move on to working with the optical drive
cd X:\boot/ go to boot sectors (X is the letter of your drive)
bootsect /nt60 Y/ with this command we copy the boot sector from the disk to the flash drive.

Upon completion of the procedure, close the command line, this time completely. That's all, all that remains is to copy all the files from the disk to the flash drive using the usual movements, and you're done. In the screenshot you can see what happens if the bitness of the installed Windows and the one whose image is being processed are different. Remember this subtlety.

Greetings, dear readers! When installing a new operating system on a computer, it will be enough to open the DVD drive, then install the installation distribution and after performing some operations in the BIOS (you can read about what a BIOS is), you can begin to complete the task.

However, what to do if the operating system needs to be installed on so-called portable netbooks or laptops, which, as you probably know, do not have a disk reader. In this case, the operating system is installed from a USB drive.

Herself from a flash drive is no different from installing from a disk, however, the process of writing the installation distribution onto a flash drive itself has some peculiarities. In this article we will look at in several ways. It should be noted here that in addition to writing the Windows distribution onto a flash drive, you can also write it to a memory card, but not all laptops have the ability to boot from a memory card. Therefore, before creating a bootable flash drive or memory card, you should make sure that your laptop or netbook is capable of booting from a memory card. And how exactly to check you can find out by reading my article:

In fact, installing Windows from a flash drive is no different from installing from a regular DVD drive.

I Method for creating bootable flash media

So, the first method that we will consider is installation using the command line. This means that by specifying special commands we will create bootable removable media. But first we need a flash drive with a capacity of at least 4 GB. This method is, I would say, the most difficult for beginners, since you will have to sequentially enter commands that are not entirely familiar to novice users. Therefore, you should not be afraid of these unfamiliar commands; the purpose of each command is described below.

1. Connect the flash drive to the computer, and then click on start and select the “Run” command. At the command line, you will need to enter cmd.exe and click OK. In this case, the command must be launched as an administrator.

2. In the window that opens, you will need to type “diskpart” to open the disk management utility. After the utility appears, you need to type the “list disk” command, which allows you to view the list of used disks in your PC. You will need to select your flash drive. Let’s say in my example this is disk 1. So, we write “select disc 1”. Thus, we indicate that all subsequent actions will be performed with this disk.

3. In the next step, we will need to clean the flash media to which we will write. Type the command “clean”.

4. After the message “Disk cleanup completed successfully” appears, the next step is to create a new partition by issuing the “create partition primary” command. Here we indicate to the system that in the future we will work with this particular section - “select partition 1”.

5. In order to select this section as active, set the “active” command.

6. Then, in the next step, you will need to format the partition we created on the flash drive in the NTFS file system - “format fs=NTFS”.

7. After formatting the flash drive is completed (100%), you will need to activate the process of connecting the device by specifying the command “assign letter=Z” and pressing “Enter”.

8. Then, after the “connection successful” message appears, type “Exit” to exit diskpart to the command prompt.

E – Disk partition containing the Windows distribution;

Z – Designation of USB storage device.

The copying process itself takes about 50 minutes.
After the copying is complete, all that remains is to restart the computer and go into the BIOS. And then, having set the appropriate settings in the BIOS, you can begin installing the operating system.

II Method for creating bootable flash media

Let's consider the second method how to burn Windows 7 to a USB flash drive. The essence of this method is that to create a bootable flash drive we will need the UltraISO program, with which we will create bootable removable media with the Windows 7 operating system.

If you do not have this program installed, then you can download it from the Internet, and it is distributed on a paid basis. However, you can use the demo version of this program and use this program during the trial period.

So, open the program and click “File – Open”.

In the window that opens, you will need to go to the operating system image and click “Open”. We will look at what an image is and how to create it in one of the future lessons. By the way, let me remind you that various competitions and tournaments are held on the blog, participate and win cash prizes. To have a better chance of becoming a WINNER, you should Subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss new articles. You can read about how to properly subscribe to blog updates by clicking on

Then, in the top menu, click “Boot” and select “Burn hard disk image” from the drop-down menu.

Therefore, before formatting, copy the data that is important to you to your hard drive.

After formatting is successfully completed, click “Burn”.

The image will be written to a flash drive or memory card for a certain time. This method is the simplest compared to the first method.

In general, in addition to the above methods for creating bootable flash media, there are also other various methods. For example, to write a Windows distribution to a memory card or flash drive, use a utility called WinToFlash.

Plus, I suggest you also watch the live video:

The essence of this utility is similar to the previously discussed UltraIso program. That is, you open the program, specify the path to the location of the Windows distribution image, copy and save. What methods of creating bootable flash media do you know? In addition, I recommend that you read the article on your computer. From this article you will learn how to properly install the Windows 7 operating system.

Having considered in this article the question of how to write Windows 7 to a flash drive, you can thereby independently reinstall the operating system on your netbook or laptop using a flash drive.

This is where I will conclude this article. I hope the material was useful and interesting for you.

In the next article I will tell you =>

The main piece of software for any personal computer is the operating system. Windows 7 is the basis for installing other software products. It acts as a kind of skeleton, thanks to which the functioning of all other applications is ensured. Therefore, the problem of transferring a Windows system for reinstallation or installation on another machine often arises.

When might you need a bootable USB flash drive?

It is best to write the OS data to a USB flash drive. It is this method that allows you to speed up the entire transfer and reinstallation process several times compared to recording and installation using a DVD.

Netbook owners should definitely record their system and create a bootable USB flash drive. Due to the lack of an optical drive, recording and transferring the system to portable devices of this type using a DVD is not possible.

Having a flash drive with an image of Windows 7 is a convenient safety net in situations where further operation of the operating system becomes impossible. And to restore the PC's functionality, a quick reinstallation of Windows 7 is required. For such a transfer, you will need a flash drive or expansion card, the volume of which should be about 4 GB.

Creating a USB flash drive using command line tools

The most labor-intensive method. More suitable for advanced users. Allows you to write a finished image of Windows 7 to an expansion card or flash drive without installing additional software. Data is recorded and transferred using command line tools.

  • To launch the command line, enter the “cmd” parameters into the “Start” search field.
  • The search result will be displayed at the top.
  • We click on it with the mouse using the key on the right, and launch it for execution under administrator rights by selecting the appropriate item from the submenu.

“Run command line as administrator” - this condition is not mandatory in the procedure for creating a bootable flash drive. But it will avoid possible difficulties associated with rights and access in Windows 7.

You can also initiate the launch of the command line in a quick way: by pressing the keyboard shortcut “Win” + “R”. But in this case, the application runs under the rights of the user of the current session.

  • In the Windows 7 command line window that appears, enter the “diskpart” command. With it we launch a utility for working with disk space.
  • To display a list of volumes that can be written to, enter “list disk”.
  • We select the desired number among them (according to approximate volume). In our case, select the “Disk 2” flash drive. After each command is executed, we receive confirmation from the system that it was successfully completed.
  • By entering the command “select disk 2” we select the disk with which we will manipulate.
  • By entering the “clean” command, we initiate the process of formatting the flash drive in order to write a system image onto it.
  • Then we create a directory into which we will transfer the Windows 7 image (the “create partition primary” command).
  • Enter the command “select partition 1”, with which we select the partition we created.
  • Activate the section (enter “active”).
  • We format the partition to an NTFS file system that supports system image data (enter “format fs=NTFS”).

After a message appears stating that the formatting process of the flash drive has reached 100%, we mount it (enter the “assign” command).

  • After which the system will assign a unique name to this volume.
  • After entering the “exit” command, the utility will be exited.
  • Now the disk and the created directory are ready to write the specified system image or data from the Windows 7 installation disk onto them.

Transfer the system to a USB flash drive using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Is free software. You can download it from the official Windows 7 resource. This application was specially developed by the corporation so that you can write the OS to a flash drive. The volume of this utility is only 2.6 MB. The process of transferring a system image or data from a licensed disk occurs in four short steps. After downloading and installing the software, do the following:

  • Let's launch the application. In the utility dialog box that appears, in the first step, select through Explorer the image that you want to write to the flash drive.
  • To do this, click on the “Browse” button. Or you can simply specify the path to the file in the “Source file” text field.
  • Then click “Next”.

In the second step, select the source to which you want to record the Windows 7 system image. In our case, click “USB device”. During the third step, we decide which flash drive we will transfer to. To do this, select the one you need from the drop-down list. We perform the rest of the steps as follows:


 

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