If you ever need to do a fresh installation of Windows 10, then you will need a Windows 10 bootable USB disk. This is needed if your current version of Windows 10 is facing some problems and you have nothing to do but install a fresh version of Windows 10. However, you must know that this cannot be used to upgrade your existing system to Windows 10.
What is the Need to Create Windows 10 Bootable USB?
Keeping a bootable USB drive handy will help you get out of many nasty problems. One of the primary reasons being the need to boot a computer. This is needed when your computer is no longer booting up. Failing to start up can be because of reasons like partition, defective hard drive, serious system failure or virus problems. With the help of this bootable USB drive, you can get rid of these problems by repairing and rebooting the computer.
However, if such problems do not affect your computer, you should still keep this Windows 10 bootable disk handy because if your OS becomes slow due to the accumulation of trash, you can perform a clean reinstallation of Windows 10. Moreover, having a bootable USB will allow you to use your Windows 10 along with your preferred tools and your personal data on another system. So, let us see how to make a Windows 10 bootable USB drive?
Procedures to Make Windows 10 Bootable USB Drive
Now, let us see some of the simplest and effective methods to create Windows 10 installation media USB drive.
1. Make windows 10 bootable USB drive using Windows Media Creation Tool
This method to create a bootable USB drive for Windows 10 is very easy. When you will use Windows Media Creation Tool, it will download Windows 10 automatically and copy all the necessary files in the USB drive. This will make the USB drive a bootable drive. Here, the ISO files can also be downloaded. Follow the steps below to create a Windows 10 bootable USB drive.
- Go to the official website of Microsoft and download the Windows Media Creation Tool.
- After that, you have to click on the “create installation media for another PC” option.
- Next, choose the Architecture, Edition, and Language as per your liking.
- Then, to create the bootable USB select the USB drive you want to use.
- Now, after the process completes, your disk will become a bootable USB for Windows 10.
However, your USB drive must have at least 8GB of free space. Additionally, make sure that you do not have any important data on this USB drive. This is because while creating the bootable USB, it will be formatted and all the data will be deleted.
2. Create Windows 10 bootable USB drive with the help of Windows USB / DVD Download Tool
When it comes to creating bootable Windows 10 installation media USB, this is the oldest and the most reliable method. However, this method requires the Windows 10’s ISO image. So, let’s see the steps for this process.
- Take a USB drive and perform a quick format. Your USB drive must have at least 8GB of free space.
- Download and install the Windows USB / DVD Download Tool from the official website of Microsoft.
- When the installation process completes, run the tool on your computer.
- It will need the ISO image file of Windows 10. You have to start the process by selecting the ISO image.
- When the process completes, your USB drive will be ready and will be a bootable drive for Windows 10.
Now, with this Windows 10 installation media USB drive, you can perform a fresh installation of Windows 10 whenever you need to.
3. Create bootable USB for Windows 10 manually
To create a Windows 10 USB bootable drive manually, you have to use the command prompt. Follow the steps carefully as this is a little tricky process.
- Take the USB drive you want to use as the Windows 10 USB bootable drive and plug it into your computer.
- Open the window of Command Prompt. You can find it in the Start Menu or you can press the R and Windows button simultaneously to open the Run box. Here, you have to write “cmd” and press the button of “OK” to open the Command Prompt.
- Now, write “diskpart” to open the software for disk partition. After that, when you will be prompted with UAC, you have to validate it.
- Then, you have to use the command of “listdisk”. This will show you all the USB, SSDs, HDDs drives and other drives attached to your computer.
- Locate the disk you have chosen to use as the bootable USB drive. Also, confirm the space available on this drive and make sure that it is not less than 8GB. Also, note the number of the USB drive you are using.
- Then, select the disk by using the command of “select disk X”. Here “X” represents your USB drive number.
- After that, delete all the data from your USB drive by using the “clean” command.
- Now, make a primary partition in your USB drive by using the command of “create partition primary”.
- Next, write the command “select partition 1” for selecting the partition that was created earlier.
- Then, to make the previous partition validated and active, use the command “active”.
- After that, using the Quick Routine, you have to format this partition as NTFS by using the command “format fs=ntfs quick”.
- Now, write the “assign” command to assign a letter to the USB drive.
- Lastly, copy the Windows 10 files to the USB drive.
After this, your Windows 10 USB bootable drive will be ready to use. If you are well versed in the technicalities of a computer and you are an expert, then this method is for you. However, if you are a beginner then it is better to avoid using this method.
Conclusion
All the above methods are very effective in creating a bootable USB Windows 10 drive. Follow these methods carefully as if you do anything wrong or miss a step, it might create problems with your bootable drive.