Gone are the days of CD installers. Now you can use more convenient tools like USB to install or repair your operating system. We’ll show you how you can use it to restart and repair your PC.
By default, Windows tries to detect any errors during startup and usually automatically boots into Safe Mode if problems arise. However, while Windows 10 has reliable self-healing tools, they are not reliable.
Playable USB
There is a good reason why you need a bootable USB stick. If your computer crashes and can no longer boot on its own, you can use the USB stick as a recovery system.
It is as if you have a fresh portable OS without having to do a full Windows installation. Your preferred settings and tools can be accessed on any computer. Some people use bootable USB devices to protect against keyloggers and viruses.
An external hard drive will also work in place of the standard USB.
Requirements
To continue, you need the following:
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- Access to Windows DiskPart or third party equivalent.
- USB 3.0 with at least 8 GB of memory.
- The ISO file of the OS you want to install or use for recovery.
You can download Windows OS directly from the Microsoft website. But you need a product key to activate all of its features and legally own the OS.
Create a bootable drive
With DiskPart and the command line, you can create a bootable USB drive with any operating system installed.
Insert the bootable USB stick into your computer or laptop. Open an Administrator Command Prompt by clicking Start, typing cmd, then right-clicking Command Prompt and choosing Run as Administrator.
Type DISKPART and press Enter. This will launch Windows DiskPart.
At the next command line, enter LIST DISK to view the available storage devices. Determine which storage device is referring to the connected USB drive.
If you are unsure, click “Start” and type “Disk Management”. Then click “Create and Format Hard Drive Partitions”. In Disk Management, find the drive # under which Removable is listed. You can also verify this by looking at the disk size.
Enter SEL DISK 1, where “1†is the appropriate location for the USB drive. If the USB stick is on Disk 2, enter SEL DISK 2 instead.
On a new line, enter CLEAN and press Enter. This command will erase the contents of the USB stick, so make sure you back up all your files.
Now we split the disk. We will introduce a series of commands. Be sure to press Enter after each. Enter CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY. Then enter LIST PAR to select the main section. To activate the section, enter ACTIVE.
We can format the USB stick by typing FORMAT FS = FAT32 LABEL = “ABC” QUICK OVERRIDE, where “ABC” is the name you want to give your USB stick. You can also automatically assign a drive letter to your USB by entering the ASSIGN code.
Once you’re done, you can exit DiskPart and the command line. Drag the Windows ISO file to your startup disk.
Change the boot order
Then you need to change the boot order on your PC if you want to use a bootable USB. You can do this by going into BIOS settings. You will need to search the boot menu and find the boot or boot order (every computer is different).
Once there, you can select your USB drive and tell your computer to boot from that device. You can permanently change the boot order by changing the order of the boot disks. This way, you can always boot your computer from a USB stick if you like.
Exit BIOS by pressing ESC. When the computer boots up, it should detect a new bootable USB drive connected to your computer and start loading the operating system.
At this point, you can use it to restore your current operating system or install a new copy of the OS if you like. Enjoy!
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