If you have a USB Flash/Pen drive and you are using the Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system you can easily create a bootable USB flash drive by following the simple (how to) steps listed below.

Why need a bootable USB drive?
There was a time when floppy drives were the only devices for booting into the system. Today it has been replaced by optical drives. However in case of a non-functional drive the last resort is to use the USB boot feature and enter into the system by connecting a USB bootable device.

Pen Drives are smaller in size and can be easily carried around. Flash/Pen drives are also less prone to damages; moreover optical drives are soon becoming thing of the past so it does make sense to have a USB bootable option ready.

For creating a USB bootable drive you need a pen drive of the capacity 4GB and higher and a free tool called WinToFlash ( You can download WinToFlash here ) and your original Windows operating system DVD.

Steps on How to create a bootable USB pen drive

  1. Connect your USB Flash/Pen device to the computer and make sure there is no important data on the UB device as all the information will be lost during the format process.
  2. Run WinToFlash tool, go through the wizard and depending on your operating system browse to Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows XP DVD files.
  3. Cross check if the USB drive letter is correct. Click the create button, wait for some time and you are done.
  4. Try booting from your newly created USB pen drive to make sure it works.
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Congratulations now you need not worry about misplaced original media disc or damaged (scratched) disk.

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wintoflash how to
wintoflash create USB bootable pen drive
wintoflash create USB bootable pen drive
wintoflash make sure USB dirve letter is correct
wintoflash make sure USB dirve letter is correct

By Rajeev Rana

Founder and Chief Editor - gogi.in