You have a UEFI-based PC and you used
Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool to create a bootable Windows 8.1 installation USB drive. You go to BIOS to change the BIOS boot order of drives and don’t know why you cannot find the USB drive marked as UEFI bootable in the Boot Device Menu.
In this tutorial we will show you how to create a bootable USB flash drive for Installing Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 on a UEFI-based computer.
Note:
- To boot a UEFI-based computer from a USB flash drive, the drive needs to be formatted using the FAT32 file system.
- FAT32 has the limitation of the maximum individual file size of 4 GB and the maximum volume size of 32GB.
- 32-bit editions of Windows are not supported by Microsoft for booting on a UEFI-based computer.
- UEFI works with a new partitioning scheme: GUID Partition Table (GPT)
Requirements:
- A USB flash drive with a minimum of 4 GB
- Windows 7 (64-bit) ISO or
- Windows 8 (64-bit) ISO or
- Windows 8.1 (64-bit) ISO
- You can also use a Windows installation DVD instead of an ISO file
Please
insert your USB flash drive into an available USB port
before perform these below steps.
METHOD 1: Using third-party freeware
- ISO2Disc
Step 1: Download and install
ISO2Disc
Step 2: Launch
ISO2Disc. Click on the
Browse button and select your 64-bit Windows 8.1 ISO file.
You can also select Windows 7 (64-bit) ISO file or Windows 8 (64-bit) ISO file as your demand.
Step 3: Select the
Burn to USB Flash Drive option.
Step 4: Select your USB drive from the list.
Step 5: In the
Partition Style list: select
GPT.
Step 6: Click on the
Start Burn button.
And wait several minutes for the burning procedure to be complete then you will have a UEFI bootable USB to install Windows 8.1.
METHOD 2: Using third-party freeware
- Rufus
Step 1: Download at the official site:
http://rufus.akeo.ie/
Step 2: Run
Rufus and click
Yes if prompted by the User Account Control.
Step 3: Select the settings as:
- Device: select your USB flash drive
- Partition scheme and target system type: select GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer
- File system: select FAT32
- Cluster size: select Default
- Format Options:
- Quick format: checked
- Create a bootable disk using: select ISO Image then click on
icon and select your ISO file.
- Create extended label and icon files: checked
- New volume label: enter your desired label for the USB flash drive or leave the default name.
Step 4: Click on the
Start button then click on
OK to confirm the warning.
The program will now start copying the ISO file to make your bootable UEFI USB flash drive.
And after more than 15 minutes, you will have a UEFI bootable USB to install Windows 8.1, Windows 8 or Windows 7.
METHOD 3: Using Microsoft’s
Diskpart - a command-line hard disk partitioning utility.
Step 1: Open a
Command Prompt with
Administrator privileges in Windows 7 or Windows 8 or Windows 8.1.
Step 2: Type in these below commands then press Enter:
diskpart
list disk
select disk X (
caution: replace X with your target USB drive, in my case it is disk 2)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
list volume
exit
Step 3: Copy
all files and folders in the ISO or DVD onto the newly created UEFI boot USB flash drive.
(if you are creating a UEFI bootable USB flash drive for
installing Windows 7, please continue with
step 4. If not, go to step 5)
There’re many ways to copy files in an ISO to USB flash drive:
#1 - If you’re using Windows 8/ Windows 8.1:
- Navigate to the folder that contains your ISO file.
- Right-click on the ISO file > select Mount
- It will automatically bring you to the mounted ISO file.
- Click on Select all or press Ctrl + A to select all files and folders.
- Right-click on them > select Send to > select the Removable Disk with the volume letter that you created in step 2 above.
#2 - If you’re using Winrar:
(Download the
full version of Winrar
here, the
trial version here)
- Navigate to the folder that contains your ISO file.
- Right-click on the ISO file > select Winrar > select Extract files
- Select the Removable Disk with the volume letter that you created in Step 2 above > click on OK
#3 - If you’re using 7-Zip:
(Download
7-Zip here)
- Navigate to the folder that contains your ISO file.
- Right-click on the ISO file > select 7-Zip > select Extract files
- Click on the Browse button > Select the Removable Disk with the volume letter that you created in step 2 above > click on OK > click on OK
Step 4: if you are creating a UEFI bootable USB flash drive for installing Windows 7, please follow these steps below. If not, go to step 5.
Navigate to your Removable Disk > efi > microsoft and copy the boot folder
Up to the efi folder and paste it.
Download and install the free archive manager
7-Zip.
Navigate to your
Removable Disk >
sources
Right-click on the
install.wim file > select
7-zip > select
Open archive and wait some seconds for 7-zip to open it.
On the 7-Zip navigation window, go to folder install.wim\1\Windows\Boot\EFI\
Right click on the bootmgfw.efi file > select Copy to > click the Browse button and select your desktop > click OK > close 7-zip.
Navigate to your desktop > rename the
bootmgfw.efi file to
bootx64.efi.
Copy the
bootx64.efi file into the
Removable Disk >
efi >
boot folder
Step 5: You now have a UEFI bootable USB and are ready for installing Windows 8.1, Windows 8 or Windows 7.
Related tips and tutorials:
(This post was last modified: 11-29-2013 08:31 PM by blackguy.)