Make a bootable windows 7 / Windows 8 usb drive

Recently, I landed into my worst fear i.e. my work computer crashed and I had to setup a new machine from scratch. In the entire recovery process; installing the OS the most tedious work.
It was then when I realized the lack of proper documentation regarding how to create a bootable USB drive to install windows 7 or windows 8

With lot of pain I found a tutorial and I would like to share the steps with all of you;

1. Open the windows command prompt in the Administrator modeType following commands in sequence i.e.

• diskpart (Note: This will open a new command window. Please do not close the previous command window as we will need that later)
• list disk
• select disk 1 (Note: here disk 1 is the disk number of the usb drive)
• clean
• create partition primary
• select partition 1
• active
• format fs=ntfs quick
• assign
• exit (Note: This will close the command window and you will land into the original / first command window)

Now, you need the copy of windows 7 or windows 8 that you want to move to usb drive

Execute the following commands in the command window that is open i.e.

• cd d:\windows7_install\boot (Note:  Navigate to directory named boot under the windows installation directory. For me it was in the D: drive in windows7_install directory)
• bootsect.exe/nt60 e: (Note:  Here e: is the drive letter of the USB drive. Make sure that you make no mistake in this step)
• Your bootable USB drive is all set now. Copy the windows 7 or windows 8 install directory in the USB drive and restart the computer with boot from USB disk option selected in the BIOS.
• You computer boots from the USB drive. Now you can execute the setup from the install directory that you copied in previous step

Cheers !! :-)

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZVgInbhTAw&index=93&list=WL