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Introduction

Hi everyone! Anidel here for another simple and useful tutorial. Today I will show you have to create a USB bootable USB drive. I will keep the tutorial as short and simple as possible so that everyone can follow it including newbies.

Task list

1. Download all the necessary files needed to install, run and test the USB bootable drive.
2. Install or put in the proper location all the necessary programs and files.
3. Run and test bootable USB drive

Objectives

1. Learn how to create a bootable USB drive using RUFUS
2. Learn how to setup and use VirtualBox and how to boot from USB in it.
3. Learn how to use Hiren computer tool kit (ISO.image)

Requirements

1. RUFUS: This is an opensource usb bootable creation tool for windows.
2. Hiren ISO image file: The bootable ISO image which we will copy to the USB .
3. Web browser
4. Internet connection
5. VirtualBox: Virtual machine to test the ISO image file and the Bootable USB drive that we are going to create.

Procedure

Step 1: Download all the files needed
The first thing we would like to do this to download all the necessary files the we will be needing to accomplish this tutorial here are the direct download links of the files needed: RUFUS, HIREN ISO IMAGE, VIRTUAL BOX INSTALLER.

STEP2: Organize and install the downloaded files and programs
After downloading all the necessary files we organize and install the programs. First we we extract the Hiren ISO image to a folder, in this tutorial I will be putting it in "RUFUS" Folder in Desktop. After extracting the Hiren ISO image, we copy the RUFUS program to the same folder, RUFUS.

After all the necessary files are organized in the same folder. We now install Virtualbox. Just follow the installation screenshots shown below.

After the installation of VirtualBox we should have two items that we will use in the Desktop. The RUFUS folder and the VirtualBox shortcut link as shown on a screenshot below.

STEP 3 Creation of the USB bootable drive
Go to the RUFUS folder and double click on the "rufus-2.18p" application. After clicking it you should see something like the screens shot below. If warning and permission messages pops up just click yes or allow to continue (no worries this program is malware free).

After the creation of the the bootable USB drive we should see something like this when we check the USB drives connected in our computer.

STEP 4 Testing the Bootable USB drive
Now we can check if the Bootable USB drive we have created actually boots. There are two ways on how to do it. First you do it by actually restarting your computer and booting from the USB drive or you can use the VirtualBox to check. Unfortunately VirtualBox does not support USB booting openly. No worries I will teach you in this section how to boot the USB.

First make sure that you have the USB connected to your computer. We need the "Drive number" of the USB drive. To get this number we Open the "Disk Management" program of windows to check what is the specific disk number of our USB.

Now that we know the hard disk number of our USB drive we now proceed on linking it to a virtual drive that we will used in the VirtualBox. We can do this in the command prompt. We can find the command prompt by following the screenshots below (We administration privileges, run this as administrator):

In the command line go to the directory of the VirtualBox by typing in the following:

cd %programfiles%\Oracle\VirtualBox

Now that we are in the VirtualBox directory we can create the virtual hard drive by typing in the following commands in command prompt (Please note that the number of the physicalDrive might be different):

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename C:\usb.vmdk -rawdisk \.\PhysicalDrive1

After creating the virtual hard disk we proceed to create the Virtual computer. We need administration privileges once again to avoid permission errors so please run it under admin mode.

Now we select the Virtual Hard disk that is linked with our USB bootable drive as our primary hard drive in this Virtual PC.

You will see the RUFUS TEST virtual computer in the main dashboard of VirtualBox. Double click on this to run it and wait until it boots up the Hiren bootable USB drive.

Once you once you reach this menu select Mini WindowsXP to launch the Operating system.

As you can see that operating system ***launch flawlessly. ***

Congratulations we have created a fully bootable Hiren's USB drive. I hope you find this tutorial useful. Until next time. Good bye!

Accomplishment Checklist

1. Learned how to create a bootable drive using RUFUS
2. Learned how to install VirtualBox
3. Learned how to create Virtual Computer
4. Learned how to boot from USB in VirtualBox (work around)
5. Discover the wonderful Hiren computer Tool kit

#plop #steemgigs #emulation #ocd-resteem #promo-resteem

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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