Creating a USB installation

In this tutorial you will learn how to create your very own windows installation USB flash drive. materials required for this is a USB with 4GB or more based on the number of operating systems you add, MDT 2010, and Windows AIK. this process will be completed also using diskpart only on vista or windows 7. reason being is that other version of diskpart do not recognize USB flash drives.

Formatting and Preparing the USB Flash Drive to Become Bootable

Step 1

open up command prompt and run as administrator. this can be done by entering CMD into the search bar

Step 2

type in DISKPART. this will open up the diskpart program inside the command prompt.

Step 3

By using the command LIST DISK you can locate and find which disk will be your USB flash drive. as for me my USB drive was disk 1.

Step 4

After you have figured out your disk number you need to select it by using SELECT DISK 1.

Step 5

Enter CLEAN command next, this will remove the first 1MB from the first sector for the new changes. note this will not delete everything off the drive.

Step 6

Now it is time to create the partition by entering CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY. once it is created you can enter it with SELECT PARTITION 1.

Step 7

Enter ACTIVE to make this a valid system partition. then format the partition with FORMAT FS=NTFS. making the files system NTFS.

Step 8

Last step to completing the job is the ASSIGN command. this will create and give the newly created drive a letter.

Step 9

Now we will need a Windows installation CD in the CD drive. take note on the drive letter it is using you will need it for the future.

Step 10

Back to command prompt and enter your drive letter of the CD drive like so D: mine was in the D drive yours might be different depending on the cd drive letters on the system. then we need to enter a folder inside the CD with CD BOOT. this will jump us into the BOOT folder.

Step 11

Once inside the boot folder of your Windows CD next is the BOOTSECT>EXE /NT60 E: (E: is my USB flash drive letter so if yours is different change it accordingly.

Step 12

The final step for the bootup USB is to just simply copy all the files in the windows CD and paste them into the root of your USB drive.

Multiple Operating System USB

Adding multiple operating systems to your new created bootable flash drive is going to require MDT 2010 and windows AIK installed on the computer.

Step 1

Installing MDT 2010 and windows AIK before anything else

Step 2

Open up deploymentworkbench, run as admin, right click deployment shares and pick new deployment shares. this will being up a wizard which starts on the PATH location where you will manage all the data you will collect from different windows operating systems. i just picked the default at C:\deploymentshare and hit next. i also just left the share name to its default but can be changed if wished after the name hit next. next . next. next. next. all of these configurations can be whatever you want but just remember them.

Step 3

Once the new deployment share is created you should find a new pulldown that looks like so.

PICTURE

Next you can add operating systems by right clicking the OPERATING SYSTEM folder and selecting IMPORT OPERATING SYSTEM. look another wizard, hit next for OS type the default works. under source you need to add the location of the Windows CD in your CD drive. after hitting next you will see the CD was automatically identify with the windows version you added for your source. then next a bunch until the wizard ends.

Step 4

You will now notice when clicking on the operating systems folder titles of the OS uploaded appear. if you wish to make more OS just repeat step 3 and give a new source location. PICTURE

Step 5

Now we need to add the deployment task which will be applied on the boot manager. for this we will be right clicking on the TASK SEQUENCES and creating a new task. guess what a wizard pops up. for the task sequence ID box you can enter in any 3 digit numbers you want this is just for managing the location for future use, but when we get to the task sequence name this will be the name of the operating system that will be displayed on the boot manager menu.next window you want the default option for standard client task sequence so click next. in the third window we are linking the OS with the task sequence. pick the OS you are creating this task for now and clicking next. the next few windows are just things in which you can configure on that OS installation. click if you want a password for admin or adding a product key but finish the wizard.

PICTURE

Step 5

Now back to your deployment share folder which is the parent of all the folders you have been dealing with. now we need right click deployment share folder and select UPDATE DEPLOYMENT SHARE. a new wizard appears, hit next for everything and leave the defaults. this might take some time but the wizard will finish.

Step 6

Now we need to expand the ADVANCED CONFIGURATION and click on media, right click and create a new media. in the media wizard create a location where you wanna save the files. i made C:\media to where all my files will be stored.

Step 7

In the middle window you should see a new media creation, which you must right click and update media. this will take some time but after it is complete all you need to do is copy all the files at the save location to your USB flash drives root location.

Picture

Now you have a bootable multiple windows OS installation USB flash drive!!!!!!