One of the challenges with new Operating Systems especially SBS Server 2011, which is over 6GB.
Now I mostly install and test Operating System in a virtual environment and don’t needed to burn an ISO to a DVD.
The following steps will allow you to not only create a bootable SBS 2011 USB stick, but you can use the steps with any other bootable ISO to do pretty much the same thing.
1. Firstly you will need the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
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2. You will a copy of your SBS 2011 ISO image or any other ISO image you would like to make bootable on a USB stick.
Note: Disable your AV software on your desktop machine as this has caused problems with accessing the USB stick during the copy process.
3. Install the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool on your machine and you should be left with the icon as below
4. Run…..the tool and it will open as per the screen below.
5. Select….. the ISO file that you wish to copy to the USB
6. Select…. Next.
7. Choose…. the type of media you to burn the ISO file to
8. Select…. USB device below.
9. Verify that your USB drive is showing below. Use the refresh icon to refresh the selection if you had not plugged the USB drive in before you started.
Once you have selected the USB device
10. Select…..Begin Copying to commence the process.
NOTE: If the USB device has data on it, you will receive this message warning you that it will erase the device.
11. Select…. Erase USB Device to continue
NOTE: Confirm this message to erase the USB.
12. Select…. Yes
NOTE: The software utility will now format the USB device. But if you didn’t disable your AV software you will get the following error message.
Go Ahead and Disable your AV software and start the procedure again.
13. If you did disable your AV software the software utility will format the disk and start copying the required files to the USB drive from the ISO image.
NOTE: This can take some time depending on the speed of the USB stick and the amount of data to be copied relating to your image.
14. After the copy process is complete, you have a completed bootable USB stick that you can use to build your Operating System.
15. remember the USB stick is NOT a read only copy, you need to remember that other things can be copied to the USB stick.
This can be good thing as you can copy other software on the USB stick that you might use in your fresh installation/build,
NOTE: At this point go and re-enable your AV software.
