Typically, an operating system comes preinstalled or you can acquire it online. But if you need an external installation medium, most everyone uses a bootable USB drive. A USB drive is perfectly suited for setting up (or resetting) a system – there are also many other possible uses such as a backup solution, partitioning software, hardware tests and antivirus scans.
Obtain a USB flash drive that has at least 8 gigabytes in space so that it can accommodate most operating system installation files.
With the flash drive inserted into the computer, open Start, and type in cmd. This will search your computer for the Command Prompt program.
While the Command Prompt is highlighted pres: Ctrl+Shift+Enter(return). This will run the program in elevated mode. When prompted select Yes to allow the program to run in Administrator mode.
Type in diskpart and then press ↵ Enter to start the windows disk partitioning software.
Next, find the USB drive that you want to use. To do so, type list disk into Command Prompt, then press ↵ Enter.
Look for the USB drive by the drive’s name, letter or size. If you’re still not able to locate it, unplug the drive and run the command again. The drive that no longer appears would be your USB drive.
Next, select the USB drive and type select disk #. In the example above, the disk we are using is Disk 2. Therefore, the command would be select disk 2, then press ↵ Enter.
To continue, all partitions and data will need to be deleted from that USB drive. To do so, type clean then press ↵ Enter.
Type in create partition primary and press ↵ Enter.
select partition 1 and press ↵ Enter.
Type in active and press ↵ Enter.
Next, format the drive and assign it to be bootable. To do so, type format fs=ntfs quick into Command Prompt, then press ↵ Enter.
After getting a message saying that “DiskPart successfully formated the volume.” Type in assign and press ↵ Enter. You should see a confirmation message appear in the Command Prompt window.
You can now close the Command
Working in IT for more than 15 years now, I’ve ran into and solved problems that are very specific to network and system administration.
I have implemented my expertise in designing, developing and executing technical solutions that have passed the test of time, managing simple and complex systems, and administrating networks.