Install Vista from a USB Flash Drive

With all the Windows Vista buzz flying around on the internet, I asked myself how could USB fit into this, besides the Readyboost power-up feature Vista provides. I found this forum post, via EverythingUSB, and wanted to share it with my USB clan. So here it goes:

Why install Windows Vista from a USB flash drive?

As any tech savvy would answer: Performance. Installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive is, most likely, the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install. This is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit Ethernet, or external USB hard drives because the differences in access speed & transfer rates.

Play-by-play guide to installing Vista from a USB flash drive:

1. Acquire an ultra-fast USB 2.0 flash drive (need one)
2. Format the ultra-fast flash drive

Run CMD.EXE and type the following. WARNING: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as “disk 1″. you should double check that by doing a list of the disks (type “list disk”) before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives, like an SDFlash drive or a Multibay drive, you could end up wiping your second drive using this command.

1. diskpart
2. select disk 1
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

3. Copy Windows Vista’s DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.

* xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

And that’s it. Boot up the machine, have it boot off the USB drive, and watch how fast the installation completes. If you thought Windows Vista installed quickly before (usually 20-25 minutes per install of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition) then let’s see how you like having Windows Vista install in less than 5-10 minutes. The slowest part of the install will probably be the computer waiting for you to type in information in the setup fields, and even that can be automated using the Windows Automated Installation Kit.

(Oh yeah… and for you server jockeys: Windows Server Longhorn will be installable in the same way. Gone are the days of waiting more than an hour just to get the OS up and running!)

Getting excited about Windows Vista – price it here.

Note & Warning: The above information was obtained from a forum post and proved to work; however, be aware GetUSB.info does not offer a warranty or support for above actions.

Question, comments; hit the USB forum:

Source: Thanks Louis over at OTGNet.com