Create a Windows 7 USB install key

Windows 7 is now out of support and the USB creation utility by Microsoft no longer is available.

Instead, you can try using Rufus which supports converting Linux (and Windows!) ISOs into a bootable USB key. If you're using a supported Dell computer, can also try using the Dell OS Recovery Tool and select Windows 7 after entering your service tag (though this option will bundle in some Dell utilities but will also include any necessary drivers for Windows installer to work).

Alternatively, you can create the bootable USB key manually by create a single FAT32 partition and then copying the contents of the Windows 7 installation DVD onto the new partition.

Using diskpart

Run the following commands to create the single FAT32 partition with diskpart. An example output is given below.

1. Run diskpart. You will be asked to run as an administrator.
2. Run list disk
3. Run select disk N, where N corresponds to your USB drive/disk
4. Run clean to wipe all existing partitions
5. Run create partition primary
6. Run active to activate the partition
7. Run format fs=fat32 quick to format as FAT32
8. Run assign to assign a drive letter

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.964

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DESKTOP-3DO6UEH

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online         1863 GB  1024 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online          476 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online          931 GB      0 B
  Disk 3    Online           14 GB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 3

Disk 3 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online         1863 GB  1024 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online          476 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online          931 GB      0 B
* Disk 3    Online           14 GB    14 GB

DISKPART> create partition primary

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART> format fs=fat32 quick

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

DISKPART> assign

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART>

See also

• https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ca/drivers/osiso/recoverytool/w764
• https://rufus.ie/en/