Surely you have many difficulties when you first install windows, which is to buy a disc, how to install? afraid of losing all the data in my computer … At first, I was the same, but after many times of reinstalling Windows, I had a full experience so today I will guide you how to make usb bootable windows 7 extremely simple. Direction The guide includes images so that all of you can easily follow even though you don’t know anything about installing windows.
1 / The note before answer the question “ how to make usb bootable windows 7 “
This guide can be wordy, and at a glance, it is troublesome, but if you read slowly and follow each step, you will be able to do it even without installing Win ever. Therefore, if an error arises at any step, please read the instructions again and repeat at that step.
If you encounter an error, see How to fix errors when installing Windows 7, 8.1, 10 with USB
2 / Advantages of installing windows 7 with USB
Very convenient because all computers support USB, while many computers do not have a disk reader.
Minimum system requirements to install windows 7 all versions:
1GHz or more 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) CPU
1GB RAM (32-bit) / 2GB RAM (64-bit)
16GB hard drive for version (32-bit) / 20 GB for edition (64-bit)
However, in my experience, if your computer has less than 2GB RAM, you should install Windows XP as the most suitable.
Prepare before installing windows 7 or answer “ how to make usb bootable windows 7 “
USB with a capacity of 4GB or higher. Of course, we have to use USB, but when unzipping the .ISO file to install windows 7, the capacity needs to be about 3.2GB so we need to prepare USB 4GB or higher.
Download the .ISO File to install windows 7 here and note that you need to check whether the downloaded file is corrupt or not using MD5. If your computer Ram from 4GB or more, you should install the 64bit (x64), lower than the 32-bit version (x86).
Rufus software for USB Boot
The downloaded software is stored on the Desktop, all the files on the USB and the C drive will be erased, so save the important files to a different drive than the C drive.
Note: You should read the article Things to know before installing Windows 7, 8 / 8.1, 10 if you are installing Windows for the first time
Instructions to install windows 7 with USB
Step 1: Create a USB boot using Rufus software
1.1 Check the standard USB Boot and C drive capacity
First, open the Run window by pressing Wimdows + R on the keyboard, then type diskmgmt.msc and select OK
The Disk Management window appears, enlarge this window and drag the Status section to expand to see the drive information:
Then we get the window as shown below. You find the drive line drive (C 🙂 as I drilled in red below and write down the total capacity of drive C (Capcity) and its free space (Free Space) on paper, to step 2 we will use. My computer is 30 GB and 11.75 GB
Next, you look in the Status column of all the rows, see if there are any lines with the word EFI or not? If it is not like the picture above, your computer will boot USB according to UEFI standard, otherwise, your computer will be Boot USB according to Legacy standard. As the picture above, my device Boot according to Legacy standard, as shown below, the Boot is UEFI standard.
2.2 Create USB Boot
So how to make usb bootable windows 7 ?
Now, plug the USB into the computer if it is not already plugged in, move the Rufus software file and the downloaded .ISO Windows file to the Desktop to avoid errors. Next, you need to turn off the anti-virus software, because the antivirus software will delete the autorun file included in USB Boot, make USB Boot error and not install Win.
Then open Rufus software (if there is an Update message, select No). Here, click on the Device section and select the USB name, then you click on the drive icon (I write the number 2 in the picture below) and find the path to the .ISO file for Windows 7
Next, click on Partition scheme and target system type to select the standard USB Boot you want to create. If in step 1.1 you determine your computer Boot USB according to Legacy, then you select the first line MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI-CSM, in contrast to the UEFI standard (only supported with ISO files that have Windows 64-bit installed). ), then select the second line MBR partition scheme for UEFI. With my standard Legacy machine, I chose the first line:
Then click on Start and a message appears, select OK:
Now the process of creating USB Boot will begin in about 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer.
After the software has finished running, click Close to turn off the software:
Now open up USB, see information column Size of the autorun file. This is the size of this file, if you see its size is 1 KB as shown below, then you have successfully created USB Boot, if you see its size is 0 KB, please turn off the antivirus software and perform USB Boot creation again.
So we have completed step 1.
Step 2: Boot USB Boot
If you want to install Windows on the same machine that you perform step 1, you USB data, if you want to install Windows on another computer, unplug the USB plug into the computer you want to install Win.
You restart the computer you want to install Windows and press the shortcut key to Boot Options. This key varies from computer to computer, but it usually appears when you start Windows and usually the keys F12, ESC, F2, Delete, …. With Dell computer is F12, Asus is ESC, desktops are usually ESC or F2 or Delete, … See How to enter Boot Option (Boot menu) and BIOS if you cannot access Boot Options.
When Boot Options displays, use the up-down arrow key and the Enter key to select USB. For Lagecy standard Boot series, here you can choose: Name USB or USB storage device or USB Flash Drive or USB-HDD or choose Hard Disk => USB name. With the UEFI standard Boot line, it will display the line with the word UEFI-Name_USB
After this step, if you cannot access the section like the steps below, select all the USB options in Boot Option (Boot Menu) one by one until you get to the installation step.
If booting into USB Boot successfully, you will see the following screen:
Sometimes you see the words Press any key to boot from CD or USB, then press Enter
Step 3: Proceed to install Windows 7
When booting USB Boot successfully, Windows installation window will show as below. Here, click on Time and curency format and select Vietnamese to set time zone in Vietnam. Other parameters you keep the same and click Next
Click on Install Now
Choose custom (advanced)
Now to the most important artifact, please do it slowly to avoid data loss and installation errors. Click Driver Options (advanced) to display drive operation options:
You will see options to delete the drive (Delete) and delete the entire file in the drive (Format) as the blue drill in the image below. And the red drill is the information of the drive on the computer including: Name (drive name), Total Size (total capacity of the drive) and Free Space (free space of the drive).
Please take the information of the C drive capacity which in step 1.1 I told you to write on paper and compare with the information of the above drives to determine where the C drive contains the old operating system. For my computer drive C has a total capacity of 30 GB and free space is 11.75 GB = 11.8 GB (rounded), I see the second drive Disk 0 Partition has the same information as drive C so I determined this is drive C.
Then you click on the C drive and notice if the Windows error can not be installed on drive 0 partition 2 (Show details) in the lower left corner of the screen as shown below? If so, please click on it to see error information:
Partition
The error message displays up. If it is an error similar to the one below, Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk opens an MBR partition table. On UEFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks, if you are using USB Boot with Legacy standard, then recreate it according to UEFI standard and vice versa if you are using UEFI standard USB Boot, you will recreate Legacy standard USB Boot.
UEFI-error
With the computer also has an error message, but the error is different from this error, you should perform normally as if there were no errors.
For computers without errors, select drive C and click Delete to delete this drive.
A message appears, select OK
After deleting you will get a drive named Unallocated Space with the size of drive C as shown below. Next, delete all drives that are less than 1 GB in size (= 1024 MB). A computer may or may not have one or more drives of this type, with my computer having only one drive, which is the first drive Disk 0 Partition: System Reserved
After deleting, you will get an Unallocated Space drive, select that drive and click Next to install Windows 7. With some machines, if you get many partitions with the same name Unallocated Space, you choose partition with the largest capacity and click Next.
Now that the installation of Windows 7 takes place, wait 15-30 minutes until the computer restarts the first time, then unplug the USB
At this step, you unplug the USB, let the computer automatically reboot and continue installation
After rebooting, the computer resumes installation
The computer restarts 2nd time
Go to the step below, in the first box you enter the user used on the computer is Vietnamese, write immediately without accents. The second box is the computer name that will automatically change according to the User name you entered. Once completed, select Next
Go to the next window is the password setting every time you open the computer. If you don’t want to set a password, just click Next. If you set a password, enter the password in the first 2 boxes, the third box you enter the password suggestion (when you enter the wrong password, this line will appear), then select Next
Next, uncheck Automatically activate Windows when I’m online and click Next
You choose Ask me later
Now to the time zone setting. Different countries use a different time zone, in Vietnam use a time zone (UTC +07: 00) Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakata. If your computer part of the Time zone is not the same, you click on Time zone and select as shown below, then select Next
And here is the result, now enjoy your results and prepare yourself for installing the Driver along with the pOther necessary software offline 😀
After successful installation of Windows, please follow Things to do after installing Windows 7 to install Driver, disable update, activate Windows, install common software (office, IDM, Winrar, …)
Note: USB after installing Win will be converted to FAT32 format, this format only allows copying files up to 4GB, so if you use USB over 4GB, please format it as NTFS or follow the troubleshooting guide USB or drive is empty but the file cannot be copied
What to do when there are errors during the installation of Windows 7?
If there is an error in the installation process of Windows, please see the article How to fix errors when installing Windows, then if the error still does not fix, take a screenshot of the error and upload it to the receiving section. Considering this article, I will support you as soon as possible
I look forward to receiving your inquiries, comments and suggestions. This will help me write a much better article. If you have done it successfully, please answer everyone’s questions below the comments with me ^^