Install Windows from a USB Flash Drive

Here’s how to create a bootable Windows installation USB drive starting with a Windows .iso file or a Windows Setup DVD.

If you’re looking for an easy way to create a bootable USB Windows installation drive, use the media creation tool.

What you need

• Windows 10 install .iso or DVD
• USB flash drive with at least 5GB free space. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesn’t have any important files on it.
• Technician PC — Windows PC that you’ll use to format the USB flash drive
• Destination PC — A PC that you’ll install Windows on

Step 1 — Format the drive and set the primary partition as active

Connect the USB flash drive to your technician PC.

Open Disk Management: Right-click on Start and choose Disk Management.

Format the partition: Right-click the USB drive partition and choose Format. Select the FAT32 file system to be able to boot either BIOS-based or UEFI-based PCs.

Set the partition as active: Right-click the USB drive partition and click Mark Partition as Active.

If Mark Partition as Active isn’t available, you can instead use diskpart to select the partition and mark it active.

Step 2 — Copy Windows Setup to the USB flash drive

Use File Explorer to copy and paste the entire contents of the Windows product DVD or ISO to the USB flash drive.

Optional: add an unattend file to automate the installation process. For more information, see Automate Windows Setup.

Step 3 — Install Windows to the new PC

Connect the USB flash drive to a new PC.

Turn on the PC and press the key that opens the boot-device selection menu for the computer, such as the Esc/F10/F12 keys. Select the option that boots the PC from the USB flash drive.

Windows Setup starts. Follow the instructions to install Windows.

Remove the USB flash drive.

If your Windows image is larger than 4GB

Windows USB install drives are formatted as FAT32, which has a 4GB filesize limit. If your image is larger than the filesize limit:

Copy everything except the Windows image file (sources\install.wim) to the USB drive (either drag and drop, or use this command, where D: is the mounted ISO and E: is the USB flash drive.)

Split the Windows image file into smaller files, and put the smaller files onto the USB drive:

How to Install Windows 7 and 8 using a USB Flash Drive

Physical DVD drives are becoming a thing of the past as the size of our PCs continue shrink and new form factors are emerging. Microsoft distributes Windows 7 and Windows 8 on physical discs or images of DVDs called ISO files that are typically burned to physical media. This has become problem as a number of laptops and tablet PCs no longer ship with DVD drives. The best way to install Windows on these devices is to use a USB flash drive that contains the Windows installation files. As an extra benefit, modern USB flash drives are typically much faster than DVDs resulting in a quick install.

Before we get started you will need:

• Windows 7 or Windows 8 ISO file and WinRAR or a burned DVD with the install source files
• 4 GB USB flash drive for Windows 7. You may need a 8 GB USB flash drive for some Windows 8 images.

Option 1 — The Manual Method

1. Preparing the USB flash drive

Let’s get started. First we need to format the USB flash drive to erase any existing data on the drive. Click on the Start Button and then Computer to bring up your drives.

Next, right click on the removable USB flash drive and select Format.

Click Start and the USB flash drive will be formatted.

2. Preparing the source files

Now it is time to extract the setup from a Windows 7/8 ISO image file. If you have a physical Windows install DVD then skip to step 3.

To extract the files from the ISO file you will need WinRAR. If you do not already have WinRAR download and install that now.

Once you have WinRAR installed navigate to the ISO file in explorer and right click on the file and select the bottom Extract to option.

The ISO file will now be extracted to a sub-folder with the same name as the ISO file. This can take a few minutes to complete.

3. Copying source files to USB flash drive

The final step is to copy the install source onto the USB flash drive in a way that will allow the Windows 7/8 install to boot up. The trick here is to use XCopy. Depending on where your source files are located there are two different methods to copy the files onto the flash drive.

Using extracted source files

Open up command prompt and navigate to the directory you extracted the source files from the ISO file with the CD command. Then, run XCOPY *.* J: /e and hit Enter to start the copy. Be sure to replace J with the drive letter of your USB flash drive.

Using a physical Windows install DVD

The instructions are slightly different when using a physical DVD. Open up command prompt and type XCOPY D: J: /e and hit Enter. Replace D with the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive and replace J with the drive letter of your USB flash drive.

5. Installing Windows 7/8 from the USB flash drive

Once the file copy has completed you are ready to plug the USB flash drive into your computer. Turn it on and hit the keyboard shortcut to bring up the boot menu for your model. Typically it is F12 or F1. After you select your USB flash drive the Windows 7/8 installation should begin to load. At this point, installing Windows is the same as on a normal laptop or a desktop.

Option 2 — Automatic Method

Microsoft now has a free utility that will automatically make a bootable USB flash drive from a Windows 7/8 ISO image file. Simply download the tool, specify the location of your ISO file and the wizard will do everything for you.

Download the Microsoft Store Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, Alternate Link.

How to Boot From a USB Device

Make your PC boot from a USB flash drive or external hard drive

There are lots of reasons you might want to boot from a USB device, like an external hard drive or a flash drive, but it’s usually so you can run special kinds of software.

When you boot from a USB device, what you’re doing is running your computer with the operating system installed on the USB device. When you start your computer normally, you’re running it with the operating system installed on your internal hard drive—Windows, Linux, etc.

Time Required: Booting from a USB device usually takes 10–20 minutes, but it depends a lot on if you have to make changes to how your computer starts up.

How to Boot From a USB Device

Follow these easy steps to boot from a flash drive, an external hard drive, or some other bootable USB device.

If the USB boot option is not first in the boot order, your PC will start «normally» (i.e., boot from your hard drive) without even looking at any boot information that might be on your USB device.

The BIOS on most computers lists the USB boot option as USB or Removable Devices, but some confusingly list it as a Hard Drive option, so be sure to dig around if you’re having trouble finding the right one to choose.

After setting your USB device as the first boot device, your computer will check it for boot information each time your computer starts. Leaving your computer configured this way shouldn’t cause problems unless you plan on leaving the bootable USB device attached all the time.

Attach the USB device to your computer via any available USB port.

Creating a bootable flash drive or configuring an external hard drive as bootable is a task in itself. Chances are you made it to these instructions here because you know whatever USB device you have should be bootable after properly configuring BIOS.

See our How to Burn an ISO File to a USB Drive tutorial for general instructions on doing exactly that, which tends to be the reason most people need to figure out how to boot from one.

Since you’re not actually inside of the operating system at this point, restarting isn’t the same as using normal restart buttons. Instead, BIOS should explain which key to press—such as F10—to save the boot order changes and restart the computer.

Watch for a Press any key to boot from external device. message.

You may be prompted with a message to press a key on some bootable devices before the computer boots from the flash drive or another USB device.

If this happens, and you do nothing, your computer will check for boot information on the next boot device in the list in BIOS (see Step 1), which will probably be your hard drive.

Most of the time, when trying to boot from a USB device, there is no key-press prompt. The USB boot process usually starts immediately.

Your computer should now boot from the flash drive or USB based external hard drive.

What happens now depends on what the bootable USB device was intended for. If you’re booting from Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7 installation files on a flash drive, the operating system setup will begin. If you’re booting from a DBAN flash drive you created, it will start. You get the idea.

What to Do When the USB Device Won’t Boot

If you tried the above steps, but your computer didn’t boot from the USB device, check out some of the tips below. There are several places that this process can get hung up at.

Recheck the boot order in BIOS (Step 1). The number one reason a bootable flash drive or another USB device won’t boot is that BIOS isn’t configured to check the USB port first.

Didn’t find a «USB Device» boot order listing in BIOS? If your computer was manufactured around 2001 or before, it might not have this ability.

If your computer is newer, check for some other ways that the USB option might be worded. In some BIOS versions, it’s called «Removable Devices» or «External Devices.»

Remove other USB devices. Other connected USB devices, like printers, external media card readers, etc., could be consuming too much power or causing some other problem, preventing the computer from booting from a flash drive or another device. Unplug all other USB devices and try again.

Or, if you have multiple bootable devices plugged in at once, the computer might simply be booting to the wrong device, in which case the easiest fix would be to remove all USB storage devices but the one you want to use right now.

Copy the files to the USB device again. If you created the bootable flash drive or external hard drive yourself, which you probably did, repeat whatever steps you took again. You may have made a mistake during the process.

See How to Burn an ISO File to USB if you started with an ISO image. Getting an ISO file onto a USB drive, like a flash drive, isn’t as easy as just expanding or copying the file there.

Switch to another USB port. The BIOS on some motherboards only checks the first few USB ports. Switch to another USB port and restart your computer.

Update your motherboard’s BIOS. If your computer is ancient, the BIOS version running on the motherboard may not support booting directly from a USB device. Try flashing the BIOS and checking again for this feature.

Creating Bootable Windows XP, 7, 8 & 10 USB Flash Drive Installers

As time passes, more and more PCs are being built without an optical drive. When the time comes to reinstall or upgrade Windows, an issue can arise: Where does that setup DVD go? The answer: On a flash drive. Find out the different ways to get Windows XP through Windows 10 onto a bootable flash drive – and enjoy the speed benefits that come with it.

For a long time, Microsoft didn’t sell Windows install media in the form of bootable USB flash drives. Instead, it prefered to stick to old-school DVD media, despite the fact that many notebooks today are too small to even include an optical drive, and many DIYers are building PCs which forego one on purpose.

However, things have moved on, and for the first time, Microsoft has begun to sell Windows 10 on pre-configured USB drives. Previous versions of the OS (XP, 7 and 8.1), all require the user to create their own bootable USB drive.

Creating a bootable Windows USB drive used to be a chore, but today, one solution can pretty-well suit most people. However, there are times when a flash drive has some quirk that prevents it from working with a particular solution, so for that reason, this article takes a look at five different methods.

Guide Index:

Benefits of USB Install Media

Even if the target desktop or notebook has an optical drive, there are a couple of reasons to consider first creating a USB-based installer. Admittedly, the time and effort of creating the drive might make it best-suited for system builders, but for people like us, who juggle test machines, USB is a no-brainer.

To start, USB media is more durable than disc-based media. Discs can be easily scratched, while well-built USB flash drives can generally handle a bit of abuse. Then, there’s the convenience. Ever walk around with a disc in your pocket? It looks a bit odd.

For us, performance and reliability are the key reasons why we’ve opted to use USB-based installers in lieu of discs, especially with USB 3.0 being much more common. Even if a DVD has been burned at the highest commercial speeds, it won’t be able to compete with flash memory which offers far improved IOPS performance (operations per second) – it’s the same reason why SSDs are much faster for booting an OS and loading applications than a mechanical hard drive; the seek times are minuscule in comparison.

While it’s beyond the scope of this article, those who truly want a fast install experience can slipstream USB 3.0 support into the install media, which on current chipsets and an SSD target can allow you to install Windows in under 4 minutes flat.

USB Installer Tools & Successes

Over the course of this article, we’re going to be looking at five different solutions that accomplish the exact same thing: Creating a USB-based Windows installer; if one doesn’t work, the next one should (at least, that’s the hope). To give an overview of what to expect from each solution, refer to this success table:

Windows 10	Windows 8	Windows 7	Windows XP
Rufus	Yes*	Yes	Yes	Yes
UNetbootin	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
diskpart	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Microsoft USB Tool	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Media Creation Tool	Yes	No	No	No
* Requires Rufus 2.1.6 or later.

Given the fact that Windows XP has reached end-of-life status and doesn’t officially support installation over USB, we have to outline a number of problems and conditions in order to get it working. Windows XP over USB is still temperamental, and there is a good chance that it just won’t work with your system, so please keep this in mind.

For starters, modern UEFI-equipped machines are not designed to support such an old OS, so chances are that it will not even install, or even be detected in the first place. If the motherboard in question happens to support a legacy BIOS mode, then it might work. Different version of Rufus (explained later) have better luck with the XP process than others. We strongly suggest you skip to the dedicated part of this article that explains the problems with Windows XP and USB support.

What about Windows Vista? Like Windows 7, 8, and 10, Vista too can be installed from USB media with these same methods, but due to that fact that most have moved on from it in favor of 10, it’s not a big focus.

We mentioned Rufus above, and that’s the tool we’re going to lead in here with, as we consider it to be the simplest to use, and the most effective. We discussed the same tool in an article from summer 2012 called ‘Creating a Bootable DOS Flash Drive the Easy Way‘, as it allows for simple creation of bootable MS-DOS flash drives, as the title suggests.

After the look at Rufus, we’ll continue on to UNetbootin, Microsoft’s diskpart (a tool built into Windows), a quick mention of another official Microsoft tool, but one the company no longer promotes for Windows 7 and 8, as well as the latest method, the Media Creation Tool. But first…

Acquiring a Disc Image (ISO)

Some solutions listed on this page require a Windows disc image (.iso) to be present. The exception is ‘diskpart’, as the disc’s files will need to be transferred over manually (it doesn’t matter if they come from a mounted ISO or a drive in an actual DVD-ROM). ISOs are available from a number of sources, but most people will acquire them after purchasing the OS online through Microsoft, or through some other related Microsoft service. If you don’t have an ISO, or a disc for that matter, you’ll need to acquire one from a friend or elsewhere on the web.

If you’re just looking to download Windows 10 as an ISO, you simply need to run the tool listed in step #5, and choose to save as ISO rather than to burn the image to a flash drive. Note that we can’t really provide an MD5 for a Windows 10 ISO, as it changes every time it’s downloaded through Microsoft’s tool. Only the ISOs directly supplied by Microsoft would have static hashes.

There are multiple editions of any given Windows version, but we’re going to list the exact ISOs we used along with their MD5 checksums in case they prove useful.

MD5 Checksums

• Windows XP Pro (Service Pack 3): F424A52153E6E5ED4C0D44235CF545D5
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Service Pack 1): 56A26636EC667799F5A7F42F142C772D
• Windows 8 Pro: 0E8F2199FAE18FE510C23426E68F675A
• Windows 8.1 (MSDN; multi-version): CDADC5A76634651770A365F457702803

Please be careful where you source your OS image from, as most online sources will be pirated copies and/or bundled with extra (sometimes malicious) software. How the image was captured as well will have an effect on how the final boot drive turns out, so stick to official sources where possible.

For those who have a Windows setup DVD, a free tool like CDBurnerXP or ImgBurn can be used to rip it into an .iso file. Other tools exist that accomplish the same thing, but these are the only ones we can personally recommend. For mounting an ISO image, we’d recommend Virtual CloneDrive, as it’s free, and not the “free but a total nag” kind of free.

NOTE: Some anti-virus applications might interfere with the USB creation process due to the autorun properties involved, so if issues are experienced, we’d recommend temporarily disabling the anti-virus until the process is complete.

Using Rufus

Both Rufus and UNetbootin are simple tools for this task, and outside of Rufus’ Windows XP support, both work just the same. However, we prefer Rufus because we find it loads a lot quicker, and feels a bit faster, too. For a great many reasons, this is still our preferred method of creating USB boot drives.

With Rufus loaded up, choose the appropriate device that you want to turn into a boot drive, under the “Device” menu, and make sure that the file system is NTFS (not FAT32). The other options shouldn’t matter too much, although if you’re planning to install Windows 8 as an official EFI OS, you may wish to peruse the options under the “Partition scheme and target system type” menu. For Windows XP, select MBR Partition only.

To load the Windows .iso file, the small CD icon to the right of “Create a bootable disk using:” option can be clicked. After perusing the file manager for the ISO image and accepting it, the “Start” button can be clicked to have the tool work its magic. NOTE: As the program will state, doing this will erase all data off of the flash drive – so backup first.

If you have any issues, be sure to check out our Common Problems section below.

Using UNetbootin

UNetbootin is a well-known tool as it’s become a de facto choice for turning a bootable Linux live CD into a bootable Linux live flash drive – for that purpose, it still excels. Little do most people realize, it can handle Windows ISOs as well (but as the table at the top of this page shows, it doesn’t support creating a bootable Windows XP drive).

Like with Rufus, the appropriate drive should be selected from the “Drive:” menu at the bottom, and then the “…” button to the right of the largest text field can be clicked to search for and accept the required ISO. At this point, the “OK” can be clicked, and the process will get underway.

Unlike Rufus, UNetbootin doesn’t erase the flash drive first, so data remains intact – however, if you’re repeatedly writing new ISOs to the drive using the tool, it’s recommended you format after each one, so as to not leave unused scrap files around the drive. NOTE: We’d still recommend backing up personal data before writing an ISO to it just in case.

Using Microsoft diskpart

For those who don’t have an ISO, but rather a DVD, diskpart is the solution for you. It does require some command-line usage, but as you’ll see, it’s not too complicated. NOTE: This method will delete the entire flash drive, so be sure to back up personal data first.

To make proper use of diskpart, you’ll need to open a command prompt with administrator rights (head to “Start”, type in ‘cmd’, right-click it, and choose ‘Open as Administrator’). Once the prompt is opened, type in ‘diskpart’ to load the tool, and then ‘list disk’ to figure out which # relates to your flash drive.

External storage should appear at the end of the list, and in our case, it did (we’re using a 32GB flash drive, which appears here as 29GB). Once the appropriate drive is figured-out, it can be chosen using the ‘select disk #’ command. Once selected, it needs to be wiped clean, have a partition created, and then be formatted. The entire command process is summed-up in this block:

list disk – shows avaialble disks, look carefully for the one that looks like your flash drive
select disk # – change # to the disk (flash drive) you wish to use
clean – removes existing partions
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs quick
assign
exit

For those who might want to see this in action, we provide this screenshot:

Note that “quick” can be removed off of the format command to run a full format, but that might take minutes to tens of minutes depending on the drive (as it’s more thorough).

At this point, the Windows setup DVD can be inserted into the drive, or the ISO mounted, and its files copied over to the root folder of the flash drive. After the process is done, opening up the flash drive in the file manager should mirror the contents of the Windows DVD/ISO.

Using Microsoft Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool

After the Windows 7 launch, Microsoft released its own USB creator tool that supported its official ISOs. While the company no longer promotes the tool, it supports at least 7 and 8 just fine, so some might prefer to use it over the other solutions.

Once downloaded and opened, an ISO must be chosen. After that, the “USB Device” option needs to be clicked (this same tool can also burn straight to a DVD).

At the last screen, the appropriate flash dive needs to be selected from the menu, and after hitting “Begin copying”, the entire process will be complete after just a couple of minutes.

Truthfully, Microsoft’s tool here might be the easiest of them all to use, but because the company isn’t promoting it in any way, shape, or form (note that it’s called the Windows 7 USB/DVD tool, and not Windows 7 & 8 USB/DVD tool), we feel that it’s right to quicker recommend the other (often updated) solutions first.

Using Windows 10 Media Creation Tool

If you plan to install Windows 10 on a new system, use it to recover an existing system, or upgrade a previous install of Windows 7 or 8, creating a bootable flash drive is the first step. Windows 10 is the first Microsoft OS that not only natively supports USB installs, but encourages it and even sells USB drives ready-to-go.

The process with Windows 10 is not much different from Windows 7 and 8/8.1 like above, but is made simpler by the fact that you don’t even need the disk image first, as you can download it directly from Microsoft, complete with all the latest service packs already installed.

The whole process for creating a Windows 10 bootable USB drive can be done by using the Media Creation Tool; most systems these days will use the 64-bit version, so grab that.

Once you’ve downloaded the tool, run it and you’ll be presented with the media creation process. The gallery below outlines each step of the process for the basic method. There are a few things you might need to check first. Depending on where you plan to install Windows 10, you need to check which version you require, Home or Pro. NOTE: The contents of the USB flash drive will be erased, so make sure you back it up first.

The version you pick here at the beginning really doesn’t matter, since your license key will determine the version you can use, and the OS will change and configure itself based on that key. The N version of each OS type is for the EU compliant version, but truth be told, there isn’t anything different about it at this time. You can pick 64-bit as well, or both 32/64-bit if you are unsure or plan on using the bootable flash drive on different systems.

The Media Creation Tool can can be used to just download the ISO image of Windows 10, which can then be used with something like Rufus to create the bootable USB drive. This offers the advantage of being able to keep a backup of the ISO image, as well as create multiple boot drives without having to download the image each time. If you run into problems with the Media Creation Tool when it comes to creating the bootable flash drive, you can use the following method.

Instead of selecting USB Flash Drive in the Media Creation Tool, just select ISO File instead, choose a location to save the file, and after it’s downloaded, follow the steps outlined in the Rufus guide above. In general, we found this method more reliable than using the Media Creation Tool to create the Windows 10 bootable flash drive, and ther are a number of other advantages to using Rufus as well.

NOTE: When you let the Media Creation Tool handle the entire process of making the USB boot drive, there is a small problem when dealing with USB drives larger than 32GB. The tool will only create a single partition up to 32GB and then completely ignore the rest of the drive, and Windows-based operating systems can only handle a single partition on USB flash drives. If you create the boot drive with Rufus, it’ll use the entire drive, so 64GB and 128GB flash drives will have the full disk space made available.

Windows XP Notes

If you are attempting to use Windows XP on a USB drive, there are a couple of things to bear in mind. First off, we strongly recommend using Rufus (32-bit version) to setup XP on a USB flash drive over the other methods, as its success rate is much better. If installing with Rufus doesn’t work the first time, change the partition mode to MBR for BIOS only. Making XP boot over USB is a little tricky as well, because it’s much more sensitive to the age of the hardware and the system you are using it with.

As far as we know, the 32-bit ISO image of XP is the only compatible version that can be put on a bootable flash drive (success for XP 64-bit was limited). One of the key points though is that you can’t use a USB 3.0 port when installing, even with EHCI mode enabled. We also found that a lot of modern hardware refuses to detect the drive.

If you are using an older system, then you should have better luck booting Windows XP from a USB flash drive. Just be sure that your particular motherboard supports booting from USB in the first place (it’s normally off by default in older system). Check the BIOS boot section and see if USB drives are supported.

Unfortunately, the time period in which motherboards supported USB booting on older hardware is quite short, as anything before didn’t have the option, and anything after (around the time Windows Vista and 7 took off), those boards started the transition over to UEFI, which XP does not support.

A number of systems we have tested this with had very mixed results. Both an older Pentium D system with BIOS, and a i7-2600 with UEFI, couldn’t boot into XP. The USB media does work on a couple of laptops, but with other systems, it just boots up into a blank screen. If checking your motherboard settings for USB boot support and even legacy modes do not work, then you will have to resort to using a CD/DVD. You can read below for some more general advice as well.

Common Problems

No Bootable Device Detected

This can be caused by a number of things. The most common is that your system is not setup to detect or boot from USB devices. You will need to go into your BIOS/EFI and check whether your USB drive is detected at all. If it is, make sure that it’s available from the boot menu. If it isn’t, then some security option may be enabled that prevents booting from USB devices.

As each BIOS/EFI is different, we can not help with specific options, but check various security and boot menus to make sure that USB support is enabled. If everything appears correct, but still can’t be detected, try enabling USB legacy support, or a different USB port, such as a USB 2.0 port instead of USB 3.0.

It’s also possible that the install media, or ISO image you have, does not have the boot information available. Try a different ISO image if at all possible.

Windows Installer Starts But Can’t Detect Install Media

If the installer starts and lets you pick installation options, but an error occurs that either says it can’t detect the DVD or it requests you to insert media with additional drivers, then you need to use a USB 2.0 port.

Windows XP, Vista and 7, do not have native support for USB 3.0 ports. Attempting to install with your flash drive plugged into a USB 3.0 port will result in the above error. Unplug your USB Flash Drive and insert it into a USB 2.0 port, then begin the process again. You may still use a USB 3.0 Flash drive, but not plugged into a USB 3.0 port.

If no USB 2.0 ports are available (such as with more modern systems), then you will either need to go into the BIOS/EFI and enable forced legacy mode or enable EHCI on the USB ports, or you will need to ‘slipstream’ the USB 3.0 drivers into your Windows Install Image.

Flash Drive Isn’t Using All Available Space

This was mentioned previously in the Windows 10 section, but if you are creating a USB boot drive for Windows 10 and your 64GB drive is only showing 32GB available, then you need to recreate your boot drive with Rufus. The Media Creation Tool (MCT) only supports drives up to 32GB, and anything larger will have a second partition made, which Windows can not detect normally (but is still available if you plug it into a Linux machine for example). So download the ISO with MCT, then flash it with Rufus.

Windows 10 ‘Something Happened’

Generic and oh-so-helpful error. If you are using the Media Creation Tool to create the bootable USB flash drive, and it’s failing on the last step, try the alternative (and recommended) method of using the tool to download the ISO image and then use Rufus to create the boot media. If the Media Creation Tool is failing to download the ISO, then this is likely a network issue with either your local machine or Microsoft’s server. Try using a wired/Ethernet connection instead of wireless, or just wait a while and try again later. Failing that, try to download from a different machine if possible.

If you have any questions about any of the steps, please leave a comment below and we’ll help you as best we can.

Update: This article was updated May 2018 by Jamie Fletcher, to include Windows 10 and additional information regarding XP and USB size problems. Originally published December 2013.

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