Create a bootable Windows 11 USB installer for both old and new PCs?

All Windows computers come with a built-in USB installer creation tool called Diskpart, a free command line utility.

How to create a Windows 11 USB installer

Launch diskpart

diskpart

Look at the list and identify your USB drive by its size. Note the disk number — you'll use it in the next step.

list disk

Select and wipe the USB drive。 Replace N with your USB disk number. This will erase all data on the drive.

select disk N

clean

Creates a NTFS primary partition and marks it active.

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=ntfs quick label="WIN11"

assign letter=E

exit

Mount the Windows 11 ISO (assign it a drive letter, e.g. D:), then copy all files to the USB. Adjust paths to match your ISO location and assigned letters.

# Mount ISO via PowerShell (right-click ISO → Mount works too)

powershell Mount-DiskImage -ImagePath "C:\path\to\Win11.iso"

# Copy all ISO contents to USB (D: = ISO, E: = USB)

xcopy D:\*.* E:\ /E /H /F