To select the partition that you just created, type select partition 1, and then click ENTER.
To create a new primary partition on the USB flash drive, type create partition primary, and then click ENTER. This command deletes all data from the USB flash drive. Note the drive number or drive letter of the USB flash drive.Īt the command prompt, type select disk, where X is the drive number or drive letter of the USB flash drive, and then click ENTER. The list disk command displays all the disks on the computer.
Whether you’re eager to get the freshly released Windows 8 Consumer Preview installed but don’t have DVDs at hand, or if you’d prefer to not use such an outdated method of installation, we’d recommend that you install by creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO. In the new command line window that opens, to determine the USB flash drive number or drive letter, at the command prompt, type list disk, and then click ENTER. Install Windows 8 Consumer Preview Using A Bootable USB Flash Drive. Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator. Step 3: Make sure the Boot Selection option is set to Disk or ISO image then click Select. If you have formatted your USB flash drive with COMPRESS, you have to move to it in Windows explorer, right-click bootmgr and bootmgr.efi, select Other and uncheck Compress contents to save disk space. Click on Device and choose the USB you want to use from the drop-down menu. In Windows 8 and 8.1, ISO files are mounted as virtual CD / DVD drives and the files can be copied using Windows explorer.
Confirm the process, and wait for the tool to format the drive and then copy Windows 8/8.1 installation files. If the USB is not empty, there will be the option to erase it. Step 2: Rufus will automatically detect your USB. Then you need to choose the USB that you want to use and click Begin Copying. Insert a USB flash drive into a running computer. Step 1: Open up Rufus and plug your clean USB stick into your computer. Restore or repair your server running Windows Server Essentials
Restore a full system from an existing client computer backup
Windows 8 is the first operating system that introduces the support to UEFI but it was caused quite a buzz when Microsoft announced it last year.To create a bootable USB flash drive for use in recovering or reinstalling Windows on a PC instead of a server, see Create a recovery drive.įor additional scenarios in which you may want to create or use a bootable USB flash drive, see the following topics: Rufus is a software that helps us create bootable USB drives the easy way as they have claimed, and they are committed to deliver that promise So basically, what Rufus does is it does the formatting to create bootable USB flash drives so we can use it to install the Windows 10 ISO instead of using the traditional CD-ROM or floppy disk. It’s meant to completely replace the ancient BIOS firm interface but in practice it still provides the legacy support for BIOS services. UEFI, stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, is a software middleware between an operating system and the platform firmware. Once I’ve done that, I was able to boot into Windows 7 installation USB flash drive and start off the downgrading process. Figure 2 – select UEFI/Legacy Boot option to Both
Figure 1 – disable Secure Boot in BIOSĪnd go to Startup, to change the UEFI/Legacy Boot option to Both (Figure 2). On my ThinkPad in particular, I had to go into BIOS → Security, and disable Secure Boot there (Figure 1).
If you want to downgrade your Windows 8 ready computer, you would have to disable the Secure Boot, and set the UEFI boot to allow both UEFI and Legacy systems. To create a bootable Windows 8.1 USB drive you will need the following: 4 GB or larger USB drive Windows 8.1 DVD, ISO file or product key A device that is running Windows. Turned out, it’s because the secure boot is enabled to UEFI only that doesn’t allow any legacy system to boot up. It kept booting back to Windows 8, instead of starting the Windows 7 installation process. But when I tried to boot it from Windows 7 USB flash drive, I couldn’t get boot into it. I bought a Windows 8 pre-installed Lenovo ThinkPad that I want to downgrade to Windows 7.