Install Windows 10 from USB

Here is a way to install Windows 10 from an USB key instead of a CD. What you need is:

• a PC running Windows
• an empty memory key with at least 8 GB
• the PC on which you want to install Windows 10.

The first step is to make the USB key ready for the installation.

1) Plug in your USB key into your PC that already has a Windows OS on it.

2) Open Command Prompt as an administrator: right click on the CMD icon and choose Run as administrator.

3) Type diskpart and press enter.

4) In the diskpart command prompt, type list disk and press enter.

5) Select the disk that has the corresponding size to your USB. Say that is disk 2, then type select disk 2.

6) Type clean and press enter.

7) Type create partition primary and press enter.

8) Type format fs=ntfs quick and press enter.

9) Type active and press enter.

10) Type assign and press enter.

11) Type list volume and press enter : you should see your drive letter besides the size of your USB.

12) Type exit to exit the diskpart command prompt and keep the initial command prompt open.

Just before making the USB bootable, we need to transfer the contents of the .iso image to the USB.

1) Locate the .iso image of the Windows 10 OS, right click the file and then Mount. You should see the contents of the .iso image.

2) Ctrl + A or simply select all files and folders. Right click on one of them and pick Send to your removable disk.

3) On the initial command prompt, type d:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 e: . d is the root directory of your mounted .iso and e is the root directory of your USB.

DONE ! Now you just have to plug in your USB in your new PC and the boot should start automatically from the memory key.