How to Format a Bootable USB Drive

You can create a bootable USB flash drive to use to deploy Windows 7 or Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012.

To create a bootable USB flash drive :

1. Insert a USB flash drive into a running computer.
   
2. Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator.
   
   
   
3. Type diskpart.
   
4. In the new command line window that opens, to determine the USB flash drive number or drive letter, at the command prompt, type list disk, and then click ENTER. The list disk command displays all the disks on the computer. Note the drive number or drive letter of the USB flash drive.
    
5. At the command prompt, type select disk <X>, where X is the drive number or drive letter of the USB flash drive, and then click ENTER.
   
6. Type clean, and the click ENTER. This command deletes all data from the USB flash drive.
   
7. To create a new primary partition on the USB flash drive, type create partition primary, and then click ENTER.
   
8. To select the partition that you just created, type select part 1, and then click ENTER.
   
9. To format the partition, type format fs=ntfs quick, and then click ENTER. 
10. Type active, and then click ENTER. 
11. Type exit, and then click ENTER.
    When you finish preparing your custom image, save it to the root of the USB flash drive.