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DVS75's avatar
DVS75
Copper Contributor
Jul 11, 2025

How do I make a Windows system disk bootable?

I have created a bootable internal HDD for Windows 11 23H2 installations (in diskpart cleaned it, created a primary partition and made it active; then ran bootsect command with nt60 switch; then copied Windows ISO contents onto it).

Everything worked fine, but after installation onto a system with a new HDD with unallocated space (into that space, so that Windows creates the necessary partitions itself) that disk was not made bootable! The system requires the disk I created as an installation one for startup. The Windows directory is on the target system, however, as expected.

I tried to run bootsect in recovery command line (under Windows it gives an access error), it said it was successful, but nothing changed: I still have to keep the installation disk in the system as a second one or I get a "no bootable disk" error 😀.

Please let me know how I can make the system disk bootable (without reinstalling Windows, since there is already some software on it).

Thank you!

2 Replies

  • Rapik's avatar
    Rapik
    Silver Contributor

    bcdboot is the most reliable tool for creating a bootable Windows recovery or install disk from existing Windows files. It handles both UEFI and BIOS boots.

  • yaosio's avatar
    yaosio
    Iron Contributor

    You can use Microsoft's official tool to create a bootable USB drive. After downloading the tool and completing the creation on the USB drive, set the BIOS/UEFI to boot from the USB drive.

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