Tired of installing windows updates from DVDs? Then you can try installing from a USB drive. You can use a USB flash drive to install the latest update of Windows OS, Windows 10. Creating Windows 10 bootable USB is simple. In this article, I will tell you how you can create Windows 10 bootable USB.
Table of Contents
Things to keep in your mind before approaching:
A USB device that you will use should be made empty at first. After making your USB bootable, you will lose all your previous data stored in your USB. So move your data from USB to your PC or somewhere else. One more thing is you should use an 8GB USB device or at least a 4GB USB device.
How to create a Windows 10 bootable USB :
There are some different methods to create a windows 10 bootable USB. I will describe them one by one.
Method 1: Using Rufus
Rufus is a free utility tool that is widely used to create bootable USB. One interesting thing is you should not have to install it into your Hard Drive to run it! That means you can use it from an external device or you can stick it on a network location.
Step-1:
Download Windows 10 ISO file first. You can choose a 32 bit or 64-bit version. If you cannot figure out which version you should select, then press the Windows +pause button on your PC and you can find it under system type. If you want to download the 32-bit version, then you will need a 4GB USB drive and an 8GB USB drive for the 64-bit version.
Step-2:
Download Rufus from their official website HERE.
Step-3:
Open Rufus and choose your desired USB drive that you want to use as bootable media. Leave partition scheme, File System, and Cluster Size unchanged. I did the same and my bootable drive was successfully created.
Step-4:
Check ‘Create a bootable disk’ and Click the disc icon, select your downloaded ISO file.
Step-5: Click start and you are done. It will take about 5 minutes if you use a USB 2.0 port and device. In USB 3.0, it should be faster, but I don’t know the exact time as I never used a USB 3.0!
Method 2: Using Windows 10 Media Creation Tool
Microsoft has released their own media creation tool that allows creating bootable USB. So what a windows media creation tool is? This is a tool from Microsoft helps to download windows 10 ISO file directly from windows 10 official Microsoft website. Before approaching, I recommend you to use an 8GB USB drive(at least 4GB).
Step-1:
At first, download the media creation tool. If you are a 32-bit user, download from here. If you are a 64-bit user, download from here.
Step-2:
After downloading, click on the downloaded media creation tool and you will see the following image. Choose “Create installation media for another PC” and click the next button.
Step-3:
Select your desired language. You will find many editions like Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Home N, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Pro N, etc. In N versions, Windows Media Player is not included. Select your preferred edition. Then select your architecture like 32-bit or 64-bit. Check your PC’s system type before choosing architecture (press the Windows+pause button). Click Next.
Step-4:
Now the tool will check whether you have enough space on your hard drive or not. If not, you have to free some space from your hard drive and start the process again from step 1.
Step-5:
Select USB flash drive and click Next.
Step-6:
Select your desired USB drive and click Next.
Step-7:
Now windows 10 will start to download. It can take few minutes, now you can use your PC for other purposes but don’t shut down your PC! If it is possible, I recommend you to use a faster internet connection to make this step faster.
Step-8:
After the download completed, you are done. Now you can use your USB device as bootable media.
Method 3: Manual Creation
If you want, you can manually create a windows 10 bootable USB. I am sure you are not reading this method unless you have read the above two methods! However, if you are a command prompt lover, this method is for you.
Step-1:
Download Windows 10 ISO file from Microsoft’s official website. Check your PC’s system type before downloading (press the Windows+pause button) and then select the 32 or 64-bit version.
Step-2:
Plugin your USB device. Search ‘cmd’ in your pc and right-click on it, select ‘Run as administrator’.
Step-3:
Type diskpart & hit enter. Type list disk & hit enter. Find your USB device’s number (look at the size). If you plug a 29 GB USB, then your disk number is 1 (see image below).
Step-4:
Type select disk 1 (your disk number), hit enter. Type clean & hit enter. Type create partition primary, hit enter.
Step-5:
Type select partition 1, hit enter. Type active hit inter. Type format fs=fat32, hit enter. This will take some time. Type assign & then hit enter. This will assign a letter to your USB device. Now, open your USB device (or it can be automatically opened) and see what letter has been assigned. Then mount your downloaded ISO file.
Step-6:
Type xcopy g:*.* /s/e/f h: & hit enter. Here g is the letter for your mounted ISO file and h is the letter assigned to your USB device. Please find your assigned letters and change g and h in this command xcopy g:*.* /s/e/f h: with them. Finally, type exit, and you are done.
Benefits of using bootable USB to install windows 10:
- You don’t have to buy a DVD to install windows 10.
- From my experience, using a bootable USB to install windows 10 is much faster than installing from DVDs.
The usage of DVDs and CDs is decreasing day by day. USB devices are now preferable to all. It is obvious that bootable windows 10 USB is being widely used to install windows 10. So why you won’t create one today?
