Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

• 05/04/2018
• 2 minutes to read
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Applies To: Windows Server 2016 Essentials, Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, Windows Server 2012 Essentials

You can create a bootable USB flash drive to use to deploy Windows Server Essentials. The first step is to prepare the USB flash drive by using DiskPart, which is a command-line utility. For information about DiskPart, see DiskPart Command-Line Options.

 Tip

To create a bootable USB flash drive for use in recovering or reinstalling Windows on a PC instead of a server, see Create a recovery drive.

For additional scenarios in which you may want to create or use a bootable USB flash drive, see the following topics:

• Restore a full system from an existing client computer backup
• Restore or repair your server running Windows Server Essentials

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 partition 1, and then click ENTER.
9. To format the partition, type format fs=ntfs quick, and then click ENTER.
    Important

   If your server platform supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), you should format the USB flash drive as FAT32 rather than as NTFS. To format the partition as FAT32, type format fs=fat32 quick, and then click ENTER.
10. Type active, and then click ENTER.
11. Type exit, and then click ENTER.
12. When you finish preparing your custom image, save it to the root of the USB flash drive.