Windows Server 2016 bootable USB Flash Disk

Information:

If you acquire ISO or DVD of Windows Server 2016, you be in need of creating a bootable USB flash disk. To do so, you must have the following:

1. Windows Server 2016 DVD or ISO image.
2. USB Flash Disk (8 GB or more)

Caution: This is a destructive process and all data on the USB Flash Disk will be removed without any prompt or warning. Therefore, it is highly advisable to either use an empty flash disk, or take a backup of all data on the disk.

Preparation:

If you have a DVD, insert it into DVD Drive. If you have an ISO, mount it to a virtual Drive (You may need to have external tool for this). For the sake of this exercise, we assume that the drive letter F: is assigned to the DVD drive or virtual drive.

Plug the USB disk on your computer. We assume that the drive letter G: is assigned to the USB Disk. If there is any data on the USB disk, take a backup before proceeding further.

Execution:

Open Command prompt with Administrative privileges, and perform the following commands in sequence.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpartMicrosoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600
Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: ****
 
DISKPART> list disk
  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          931 GB  1024 KB   *
  Disk 1    Online          931 GB   101 MB   *
  Disk 2    Online         7633 MB      0 B

Please note the output of list disk command. In above screen, disk 0 and disk 1 are hard disks and disk 2 is the USB disk. The output does not show CD/DVD or mapped drives.

DISKPART> select disk 2
Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

At this moment, disk 2 is selected. All the following operations will be applied to Disk 2. If you select a wrong disk and run below commands, you may lose data. Therefore, be very careful in selecting right disk. Again to re-emphasize, the following command will delete all data on the USB disk, so make sure you have backup of your data.

DISKPART> clean
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

At this moment, all data on the USB disk is destroyed.

DISKPART> create partition primary
DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.
DISKPART> select partition 1
Partition 1 is now the selected partition.
DISKPART> active
DiskPart marked the current partition as active.
DISKPART> format fs=ntfs quick
100 percent completed
DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.
DISKPART> exit
Leaving DiskPart...

At this moment, the USB disk has one partition which has been marked as active and formatted with NTFS file system. Now we will make the USB disk bootable by copying the boot sector. F: drive has our source media, and G: drive is our USB Disk.
C:\WINDOWS\system32>f:
F:\>cd boot
F:\boot>bootsect /nt60 g:
Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.
G: (\\?\Volume{---------------})
Successfully updated NTFS filesystem bootcode.
Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.



At this moment, the USB disk has been made bootable. Now we will copy all files from the media. You can copy the files by using below command or select all files/folders from F:\ and paste on G:\. If using drag and drop option, make sure you have made hidden files visible from options.
F:\boot>CD ..
F:\>xcopy f:\* g: /H /F /E

The copy process will take some time, especially at install.wim file which is around 4.5 GB in size. If you don't see any progress for some time while copying this file, don't panic and wait till the process completes.

Usage:

To use this bootable USB disk, you must attach it to the server and boot. You may need to change the boot sequence to make sure USB disk is tried first while booting.