Vista - USB Bootable Vista Installation Flash Thumb Drive

Hello Nonpasaran,

In addition to The Cool Guy's post, doing a installation from a USB key that uses the USB 2.0 standard will install much faster than from DVD.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I was lead here by Vista's tech support and told to make a USB bootable "Anytime Upgrade" disc. I had followed the instructions at the beginning of this thread, loaded my Disc, downloaded UltraISO and so on, somehow I couldn't get the disc to be read. Any ways, I have since done a full recovery on my machine that I needed the USB bootable for. Finally that is done. Now I would like to get the .ISO files off my USB drive and be able to use it as I did previously. Everytime I try to plug it in to erase these files, it seems as though it is freezing and crashing the machine I plug it into. I have tried 4 different machines now. I did get one to show that the files were read only and could not be removed. How do I get these off of the USB flash drive??? THANKS

Hello Rschap1,

Check to see if your USB key as a switch on it that makes it read only or not. Some include this feature.

Next, try METHOD ONE in this tutorial below to see if you are able to delete the USB key, then be able to format it and use it as normal. If not, then I have a more involved method that should work for you instead.

Disk Management - Delete and Extend

Thanks very much for that info. The flash drive does not have any type of switch on it. I had tried to access the drive by opening the UltraISO program, File NEW, and trying to explore the flash drives contents, hoping to erase them that way. That is when I got the read only error message. Was there something else in Method 1 that I did not pick up on? Also, looking at the link to extending or removing partions from drives, is this to say that I can use Disk Managment to extend or delete the drive and that will clear the drive of it's contents or format it? Appreciate the help. THANKS AGAIN!

Rschap1,

You would want to see if you are able to delete the USB drive in Disk Management, then format it to hopefully be able to use it normally again.

brink, i tried booting with F12 instead of changing it in bios and it did not work. why does it need to be changed in the bios? doesn't F12 do the same thing?

Hello Harry,

I've always set in the BIOS to make sure that it boots to the USB key. I haven't tried using F12 before though.

i am wondering if my motherboard will not boot to flash drive? i tried with it set to USB FD and USB HD, it sets there about 5-10 seconds then loads windows normaly.

I have a Gigabyte motherboard, and it has two separate settings for the boot order. One for the "Hard Disk Boot Priority" and another for the "1st, 2nd, 3rd, Boot Device". If your's has something similar, then you will need to set both of them for the USB drive. You may also need to try the different USB (ex: FD, HD) options to see if one may work instead of another.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

thank you, i will look into those