Create a Windows 11 Installation Media (Bootable USB Drive)

You can use Windows 11 installation media or a Bootable USB drive to, clean Install Windows 11 24H2, perform an upgrade or troubleshoot startup problems and repair Windows 11 on your computer. Microsoft offers Windows Media Creation Tool to create an installation media or bootable USB drive with few clicks. In addition, you can use the command prompt utility or third-party utility Rufus to create a Windows 11 bootable USB drive.

How To Create Windows 11 Bootable USB Drive

You can easily make a Windows 11 bootable USB flash drive with an official media creation tool. Also, you can use the third-party utility Rufus or Diskpart utility on Command Prompt to create Windows 11 installation media and use it for different purposes.

Here are the pre-requirements for creating Windows 11 installation media.

USB Flash Drive with 8GB of free space. (Note while making it bootable windows clears everything on the drive and then places Windows installation files there, so we recommend backup the drive if important files are there.

Stable internet connection required: Make sure your device is connected to a stable internet connection, to download Windows 11 ISO and update files.

If you already have downloaded the Windows 11 ISO image to a local device you can use the third-party utility Rufus to create installation media without the internet.

Download the Windows Media creation tool: This is the official tool Microsoft offers to make a bootable USB and use it to reinstall or clean install Windows 11 on a new or used PC. Download the tool using this link https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11.

When you are ready, follow the steps below to create installation media for Windows 11.

Using Windows 11 Installation media

• First, download the Windows 11 Installation media or the media creation tool from its official site here,
• Locate the download folder, right-click on Mediacreationtoo.exe select run as administrator, click yes if UAC prompts for permission,
• The tool may take a few seconds to launch, and you must accept the license terms before proceeding.

• The tool automatically detects and selects the Edition and Language click next.
• If you are looking to make any changes, uncheck the “use the recommended option for this PC” option

• In the Choose which media to use window, select USB flash drive and click the Next button. (Make sure the USB drive is connected to your computer or laptop)
• The tool automatically detects your flash drive or if you have multiple drives connected, Select your USB drive from the list of drives available and click next,

• This will start to download the necessary Windows 11 file from the Microsoft server and create an installation media, the time depends on internet speed and system configuration.

• When “your USB flash drive is ready” message appears, click the Finish button to close the setup wizard.

Create a Windows 11 Bootable USB With Rufus

Rufus is an open-source tool specialized in creating bootable USB flash drives, primarily for Windows. It offers a straightforward and efficient way to prepare USB drives for tasks like OS installations and system repairs.

Also, you can tweak the Rufus tool to bypass TPM 2.0 and SecureBoot verification for Windows 11 installation.

• First, visit Rufus official site here and download the latest version,
• Locate the download folder and run the executable file, and click Yes if prompted by UAC.
• Make sure you have connected the USB flash drive to your PC, and let Rufus detect the same and show it under the Device section.
• Next under boot selection, use the dropdown and select Disk or ISO image,
• If you have Windows 11 ISO image downloaded on your PC click on Select and locate the ISO file,

• If you don’t have an ISO image, then click on the dropdown menu and select download, and click on it,
• Select the ISO you are looking for make a bootable USB and click continue

• Leave the Partition scheme (GPT) and Target system (UEFI) as default.
• Expand the Show advanced format options and Make sure the Quick format and Create extended label and icon files option is checked.
• Click the Start button to initiate the bootable drive creating process.

Create a Windows 11 Bootable USB With command prompt

Also, you can use the Windows command prompt to create Windows 11 installation media.

• Press Windows key + S and type cmd, right-click on the command prompt select run as administrator,
• First, run the DISKPART command to launch the Windows diskpart utility,
• Next run LIST DISK command to list all available storage devices, Make sure the USB device is connected to your PC,
• Locate your USB drive, you can look at the size column to determine your USB drive, for me it’s Disk 2 (May it’s different for you)

• Run command SEL DISK 2 to select your device, then run CLEAN command to erase all the content from the drive,
• Now run the command CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY type LIST PAR command to select the main partition,

• Run command ACTIVE to active the partition and run the following command to format the USB drive

FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL=“BootableUSB” QUICK OVERRIDE

• Once done, type Exit and hit enter to exit the Disk Part utility

• Now copy all the data from the OS(Windows/Linux/etc..) installation disk to your USB drive that is just been made bootable.