Every time the operating system needs to be reinstalled, the user creates a bootable USB flash drive with clean Windows. After installation, many people think that they can continue to use such a flash drive by simply erasing all the image files from it, but this is not the case. During operation of such a drive, various errors may occur. Either the system refuses to see the connected device, then reading/writing data fails, and so on. The cause of such troubles is the flash drive from which the boot drive was made. Today we will tell you how to turn a bootable flash drive into a regular one.

Someone will probably say that for further use, the flash drive with the operating system image must be formatted. But, as practice shows, this is not always enough. The above problems may also occur after formatting using standard Windows tools. To avoid any problems with the drive, you will need to resort to specialized utilities.

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

A very simple proprietary utility from HP that performs deep formatting and rids the drive of all kinds of errors. The software is a portable version and only supports English, but this is not scary, because the interface is very simple and the functionality is highly specialized. You need to run the utility as an administrator, otherwise you will see an error when you try to format the flash drive.

After launching the program, you will see a small window. In it, in the “Device” column, you need to select one of the connected drives. Then specify the type of file system you want after the recovery process. In the “Volume label” column, specify the name of the device that will be displayed in the operating system. It is advisable to perform careful formatting, leaving the “Quick Format” item empty.

After all the specified settings, click “Start”. You will see a warning indicating that all data on the drive will be erased. Therefore, copy all the files you need from the flash drive in advance.

The completion time of the operation depends on many factors and usually ranges from 5 to 40 minutes. Quick formatting (the checkbox next to the “quick format” item) speeds up the formatting process, but does not guarantee that the drive will no longer conflict with different software and hardware. The scale showing formatting progress may stop in place. Don't be alarmed and wait for the process to finish in any case. In some cases, the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool does not save the drive from errors. Therefore, we recommend trying other utilities that are aimed at restoring the flash drive to its original state.

Rufus utility

Rufus is a popular bootable media creation utility that has a very simple interface. As paradoxical as it may sound, using a program to create a bootable flash drive, you can also return the flash drive to its original state. The software fully supports the Russian language and is available in a portable version. According to the developers, Rufus works faster than its analogues, and in particular faster than: UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer and Windows 7 USB download tool. In general, the capabilities here are the same as those of the previous utility, with the exception of a couple of options. Usage algorithm:

1. In the "Device" section, select the desired drive. You can focus on the assigned letter (for example, “F”).
2. In order for you to open the formatting settings, you need to select either “Non-bootable drive” or “FreeDOS” in the “Boot method” column. By default, it is set to "Disk or ISO Image", which will not allow you to do formatting.
3. There is no need to touch the “Select” button. It is needed in order to select the files that are required to create a boot device. But that’s not what we’re here for.
4. The “Partition scheme” and “Target system” items can be left untouched; this concerns the creation of bootable media.
5. “Volume label” is the name of the drive displayed in the system.
6. Select the file system (NTFS, FAT32, UFD, exFAT).
7. It is better to leave the cluster size at default.
8. Just like in the previous utility, it is better not to touch the “Quick Format” item and leave it empty to achieve 100% results.
9. Check the box next to “Create an extended label and device icon.”
10. If you wish, you can check the media for the presence of bad blocks. However, keep in mind that this will take a very long time (depending on the number of passes and memory type).
11. Start formatting by clicking the "Start" button.

If you refuse quick formatting and decide to check the flash drive for bad blocks, then get ready for the fact that the process may take several hours. In our case, an 8 GB drive was formatted within 40 minutes without checking for bad sectors. Also, the larger the volume of the device, the longer it will take to complete the operation.

diskpart utility

The capabilities of the Windows operating system are very wide. Below we will tell you how to make a bootable USB flash drive normal using standard tools. Diskpart is a console utility for managing hard drive partitions.

The complete list of commands is as follows:

These are not all the methods by which you can return a bootable flash drive to its original state, but there is no point in talking about all the methods. As a rule, any of the three utilities described copes with its task and after that the drive works flawlessly.

Without exception, all laptop manufacturers are looking for the perfect balance between ergonomics and performance, cutting down on features that are not in demand today, such as the presence of a CD-ROM. It may well happen that you do not have an external reader at hand, and you will need to urgently reinstall the operating system. This is where a bootable USB flash drive will come to our aid. How to make a bootable USB flash drive? We'll tell you in this article

What is a bootable USB flash drive?

Flash The disk on which the operating system image is loaded is called a bootable USB flash drive. There are at least two ways to turn a regular flash drive into Boot device how to use standard tools Windows and through third-party utilities. Using Components Windows the method is the simplest and fastest, and therefore we will consider it first

Creating a boot disk using the command line

You'll need basic command line skills here, but even if you don't have them, follow the detailed instructions:

1. Go to “Start” -> Run, in the dialog box that opens, write cmd.
2. We need to enter certain commands in the empty fields of the command line in a strictly specified order, which you can see in the screenshot.
3. Diskpart a program that allows you to manage volumes and disks using scripts and command line values
4. list disk - displaying those connected to your computer HDD and disk drives. The same as the visual viewing mode through “My Computer”, only in text mode cmd.
5. Select disk - capture an object for work, set the value corresponding to the number of the connected device
6. Clean – command that formats all data on the selected media
7. Create partition primary – command to create primary partition
8. Select partition selecting a section with an arbitrary value, select the newly created one
9. Active – activate the section
10. Then we assign the drive a file library type with the command Format fs=NTFS or Format fs=FAT
11. Assign Letter - assigns a letter to the drive, which in standard mode is set arbitrarily or by the manufacturer
12. Exit completes image creation and closes the program.

After all steps are completed, move the files from the operating system to the boot disk (flash drive). VERY IMPORTANT! We move all components of the new system to a flash drive in an unpacked(not ISO) form, otherwise the system will not be able to read data from the drive. In addition, on the recipient computer, be sure to BIOS set the correct parameters Boot Device in the boot device menu we indicate primary Flash- drive so that the system does not boot from HDD, and from the connected device. Done, you can start working

Boot creation sectors using the utility ULTRAiso

Let's say you don't have a boot disk image, but you have new system components that you want to create an image of. The UltraIso program will help us with this, with which you can rivet and modify disk images. Thanks to its wide user functionality, we can create a boot disk using the program's graphical shell, which simplifies and speeds up the process of obtaining the desired tool, unlike the command line method

If the files are successfully copied, the program will inform you that the installation disk image has been downloaded. Click "OK". Now we can use USB as a boot disk exactly the same as in the first case

Mounting the boot disk in the program USB/DVD Download Tool

In it we can create a boot disk from Flash- carrier, and with DVD. Due to the fact that we are considering situations where there is no disk drive, we will show you how to make an image for Flash memory.

As you can see, everything is still simpler here than in the case of the ULTRAiso program, but the functionality of the USB/DVD download tool is correspondingly not so wide. You can use any of the proposed methods for creating a boot disk, limiting yourself only to the presence of components for mounting the image and a list of pre-installed programs.

If an error occurs when loading the system installer from a Flash drive, most likely you did something wrong in one of the image creation steps, or you simply forgot to assign the boot Flash drive as a priority in the computer's BIOS. In cases where the boot interpreter does not see the boot disk, try changing the port of the connected device or burning the image to another boot disk. We hope that our article will help you install Windows on a new computer correctly and quickly.

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A USB flash drive is not recognized as a disk when connected to a computer or laptop? Can't you write anything on it? And you can’t even format the flash drive? In principle, all is not lost. Most likely the problem lies with the controller. But this can be fixed. And everything will take a maximum of 5-10 minutes.

The only caveat is that restoring the flash drive’s functionality is only possible if it has no mechanical damage (+ it appears in device manager). That is, if you disabled it not through “Safely Remove” (or something like that), then this can be fixed. At the very least, it’s worth at least trying to restore a non-working flash drive.

How to get your flash drive working again

Even if it seems that the USB flash drive has come to an end, you should not take it for repairs. And even more so throw it away. First, you can try to restore the damaged flash drive.

The instructions work for all USB flash drives: Silicon Power, Kingston, Transcend, Data Traveler, A-Data, etc. With its help, you can restore the file system and fix any problems (except mechanical damage).

So, the first thing you need to do is determine the parameters of the USB flash drive. Or rather, its VID and PID. Based on this information, you can determine the brand of the controller, and then select a utility that will help restore the damaged flash drive.

To find out these parameters, do the following:

1. Connect the flash drive to your PC or laptop and go to Start – Control Panel – Device Manager.
2. Find the "USB Controllers" section.
3. Double-click on it and look for the “USB storage device” item. This is your flash drive (let me remind you, it must be connected to the computer).
4. Right-click on it and select “Properties”.
5. In the new window, go to the “Details” tab.
6. In the “Property” field, select the “Equipment ID” (or “Instance Code”) item.

   

7. Look at the VID and PID values ​​and remember them.
   
8. Next, go to the website http://flashboot.ru/iflash/, enter your values ​​at the top of the site and click the “Search” button.
   
9. You are looking for the model of your USB flash drive (by manufacturer and memory capacity). In the right column “Utils” there will be the name of the program with which you can try to restore a non-working flash drive.
   

After that, all that remains is to find this utility by name or follow the link (if it exists) and download it.

Restoring Kingstone, Silicon Power, Transcend and other models is easy: just run the program and follow the instructions.

What to do if you have not found a suitable utility for your model? To do this, go to Google or Yandex and write something like this: “Silicon Power 4 GB VID 090C PID 1000” (of course, you should indicate the parameters of your flash drive here). And then look what the search engine found.

Never use programs that are not suitable for the VID and PID parameters of your controller! Otherwise, you will “kill” the flash drive completely, and you will no longer be able to restore it.

In most cases, recovery of a damaged flash drive is successful. And after that it will be detected when connected to a PC or laptop.

This is how you repair a flash drive yourself using a free utility.

And most importantly: in this way it is possible to restore a damaged flash drive in 80% of cases. While most specialized programs may not be able to cope with this task.

Remove the entrails and that’s it!” - the standard answer of armchair monks to a frequent question from an inexperienced user: “How to make a regular one from a bootable flash drive?” Not everything is so simple, friends, not every USB flash drive can be considered bootable and not every one can be “brought back to life” by simple formatting. Let's find out!

The method of restoring a flash drive from a bootable one requires Mac OS.

IMPORTANT. All manipulations with the proposed program will work for others. For the second method, it is not necessary to have Mac OS installed; you can use a virtual machine.

We fix it using the program

We will use the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool application; Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Direct are suitable for the same purposes. The principle of operation is the same, we reformat the flash drive into the desired format: FAT, FAT32 or NTFS, for example. There is nothing complicated, we find and download the program, launch it and this window appears in front of us.

• In the first “Device” field, select our flash drive.
• In the “File system” field, select the file system that you need. If you don't fully understand what you need, then choose NTFS. If your computer or laptop is not very new, then it may not be able to read NTFS, in this case try FAT or FAT
• Volume label - change the drive name.
• Be sure to check the Quick Format box, otherwise formatting will take a long time. Depending on the power of the computer, complete formatting may take half an hour, a little more or less.
• Click the “Start” button, confirm the start of processing, wait a couple of minutes and be satisfied with the result.

We use Mac OS

For this method, we need the Mac OS operating system; we do not have to install it on one of our devices; a virtual machine with the system installed on it will suffice. Don't forget to connect the USB flash drive to the virtual machine.

Open the search bar and enter the word “disk”, in the drop-down menu with the results we are interested in the line “Disk Utility”. Most likely, this result will be in first place with the label “Best Match”.

A new window with Disk Utility opens, perform the following steps:

• On the left in the column we find our device, select it.
• In the “Partition Scheme” area, select “Partition 1” from the drop-down menu.
• We go down a little lower to the “Options” button and in the window that appears, set the radio switch to the “Master Boot Record” state.
• Set the format to “MS-DOS (FAT)”.
• Set any name.
• Click the “Apply” button.
• In the window that appears, click on the “Disk Partition” button.
• After completing the operation, you can close the window and disconnect the drive from the virtual machine.
• We open Explorer on our native Windows and rejoice at the revived device.

Conclusion

So, we figured out how to make a regular flash drive from an installation flash drive. The main nuance of this problem is that it can very rarely be solved by regular formatting in Windows Explorer, but in other systems, such as Mac OS, or specialized programs, this is quite possible. If the proposed methods do not suit you for some reason, then use other programs that were suggested above.

Do not forget that not all devices can be cured; it may turn out that the microcircuit on the device is damaged, and then no manipulation will help you return your drive to working condition.

If you have any questions or suggestions, write in the comments!