Create Bootable USB Stick

If you really need speed to install a couple of Windows Server 2008 boxes I recommend placing the installation files on a high-speed USB Stick.

 

Hard drives are usually connected to one Host device and USB channels are connected to another host device chip on your motherboard. Installing from an USB device therefor won’t hog the host devices for your hard drives (like when using an image) and won’t lag like a normal DVD player would do while spinning up and spinning down. When you choose to use an USB flash drive (called an USB stick around here) instead of an USB hard disk (slower)  you can achieve lightning speeds. To make your bootable USB device, simply type the following commands on a system with the image mounted or physical DVD copy in the drive and the USB device plugged in:

1. Open diskpart through cmd.

diskpart

2. DISKPART> list disk

3. Select the USB device from the list and substitute the disk number below             when necessary.

4.Execute the following commands.. 

DISKPART> select disk 1
DISKPART> clean
DISKPART> create partition primary
DISKPART> select partition 1
DISKPART> active
DISKPART> format fs=fat32
** it is also possible to quickformat the disk. Through explorer rightclick the device select format and mark quickformat,followed by apply. It will go even faster.**
DISKPART> assign
DISKPART> exit

5. Run in an command prompt the following: xcopy X:\*.* /s/e/f Y:\
where X:\ is your mounted image or physical DVD and Y:\ is your USB  device.

Now all you need to do is plug the device into your target box’ USB slot and boot it.    (The target system will need to have USB slots and be able to boot from USB devices)