Instructions (using the command line)
At a high level, the steps are:
- Mount the Windows 8 [retail] ISO image on your computer
- Format a USB flash drive
- Copy the Windows 8 files onto the USB flash drive
- Make the USB flash drive bootable
- Install Windows 8 from the bootable flash drive
Step 1: Mount the Windows 8 [retail] ISO image on your computer
Step 2: Format a USB flash drive
Diskpart Commands
- Open the command prompt; type the following commands:
a. diskpart
b. list disk
- ^^ This will show all connected disks, their disk numbers, connection status and disk size.
- Using the sizes, determine which disk is your USB drive and remember its disk number (i.e. Disk 2)
- Type the following commands: (where X is the disk number of your USB drive)
a. sel dis X
b. clean
c. cre par pri
d. active
e. format fs=fat32 Quick
f. exit
<...>
Step 3: Make the USB flash drive bootable
We just need to make the USB flash drive bootable before copying the files. To do this, you can use the
Boot Sector Registration Tool (bootsect.exe) which is located in the
boot folder of the Windows 8 ISO image.
- Start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and CHDIR into the boot folder of the Windows 8 ISO image, e.g. I:\boot where I:\ is the drive where the ISO image is mounted
- Type bootsect /nt60 k:
/* where k: is the drive assigned to the USB flash drive */
Step 4: Copy the Windows 8 files onto the USB flash drive
From a command line, use XCOPY to copy the Windows 8 files to the USB flash drive . In the example below, I
:\ is the drive where the ISO image is mounted.
k:\ is the USB flash drive.
Code:
xcopy i:\*.* k:\ /e /f /h
