How to Install Windows 8 from a USB Drive: In-Depth Analysis
Although both Windows 8 and the new version Windows 8.1 They can be purchased in physical version through a large number of establishments, it can also be done by digital download from Microsoft's own website, to later carry out an update or a complete installation from a DVD or USB drive.
We show you an in-depth analysis of how to install Windows 8 from a USB drive Not only for the convenience of doing it from these devices, but also because a greater number of computers that do not have a DVD drive are appearing on the market, such as some Ultrabooks and Netbooks.
First steps
The first thing we have to do is make sure that in the boot sequence of the BIOS of our equipment, the option that will allow us to use a USB device to boot the system.
Although it is something quite simple to do, each manufacturer uses a different system so if you don't know how to access the BIOS consult the manual for your equipment. In some BIOSes you have to store the sequence of boot devices. On the other hand, in others, it is enough to select the option that we want when we are going to carry out the installation.
How to create a USB installation drive from the Windows 8 wizard
During the Windows 8 purchase process, we will download a small installer that, once executed, will launch the operating system purchase and installation wizard.At a certain point, we will check the option Install by creating media and then select USB flash drive , and after selecting the destination unit, wait for the process to finish.
Although this is the most direct way to create a Windows 8 installation USB drive, it has the drawback that it forces us to keep that device intact for future installations. That is why we are going to see an alternative method through which we will save an ISO image of the installer of our Windows 8 to create the DVD or USB drive of installation only when we need it.
How to create a Windows 8 ISO image
An ISO image is a single file that stores an exact copy or image of a file systemTo create an ISO image of our Windows 8 installation we can do it in two ways. The first is by selecting ISO file in the Windows 8 installation wizard. You can see this option in the image in the previous section.
For the second method of creating the ISO image we need a Windows 8 installation DVD We insert it into any computer within our reach that logically has a DVD drive, and with a recording program of the many that are free, such as ImgBurn, we will create the ISO image by clicking on the Create image file from disk button. We can save this file in a safe place to avoid all the previous steps in the event of having to carry out other installations in the future.
Creating the Windows 8 installation USB drive from an ISO image
Once we have created the Windows 8 ISO image, we need the application Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, which we can download free from Microsoft Although this tool was designed to install Windows 7 on USB drives and DVDs, it works perfectly with Windows 8.
After installing Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, we run it to four easy steps, create our USB installation drive:
- In the first step, click on Browse to select the ISO image that we created previously and then click on Next .
- In the second, click on USB Device (or DVD in the case of wanting to create an installation DVD), and then on Next .
- In the third step, we select our USB drive and click Begin copying .
- If the USB device does not have 4 GB of free space, a message will be displayed on the screen notifying us and we must click on Erase USB device to delete it and proceed with the installation.
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