Windows 10: USB flash drive --assign drive letter back to dynamic from static

1.Sorry to bother you again mate but I notice that you type Select Partition 1 after Create Primary Partition whereas in the Dell instructions they don't..they go straight to Formatting. Is there a reason for that?
2.Also could I ask..is it better to do the Quick Format....or the Full format. I'm guessing if you left off the word quick would that do a full format instead if required?

After reading what you and Fdegrove have said I'm going to go for preparing the USB flash drive with the Diskpart commands and then Mount the ISO and copy the files across to the flash drive after downloading it with the Media Creation Tool as you suggested.
I had decided to use Rufus as I'd used it once before successfully but after reading your advice I'm going to forget about using Rufus from now on

 

Full format is a waste of time on a usb stick as it checks every sector is OK for read/write. A usb is solid state and shouldn't have any bad sectors. You'd just be writing to it (and possibly reducing it's life) for no good reason. Useful for a usb HDD though, where bad sectors are a possibility (particularly if it's been in use for a while).

Dell's 'select volume' command means diskpart already knows which partition you're working on - a volume is a single partition.

 

Hi,

Yeah, but I still feel it's risky to start with that command in this case as some users have multiple drives with a multitude of volumes.
If you start with "lis dis" you can easily spot the USB stick as a 16Gb stick will be shown as 14Gb when formatted.
Just my opinion though.


Cheers, *Wink

 

Me too - diskpart is very powerful and unforgiving. My commands are chosen to be safe(er) to use than Dell's - less chance of making a costly mistake.

 

I think we got crossed wires there Bree. I meant that you type Select Partition 1 after Create Primary Partition whereas in the Dell instructions they don't. Is that just to verify that youre in partition 1 to be double sure?

One other thing ..I notice that neither you or Dell use the Assign command (for choosing a drive letter? Does that mean that the drive letter will automatically set itself to dynamic which is what Id prefer anyway. I wouldn't want a static drive letter

 

Dell start with 'select volume' which in itself defines the partition being used. I used 'select disk' so I need to select the partition once I've created it.

Yes, it does. Windows will assign a drive letter to it automatically, and try to use the same one each time it sees that particular usb again (if it's already in use for another usb it will get a new letter, but should revert to it's first choice when next seen on its own).

 

Hi again Bree,
I think we got crossed wires there. I meant that you type Select Partition 1 after Create Primary Partition whereas in the Dell instructions they don't. Is that just to verify that youre in partition 1 to be double sure?
Dell start with 'select volume' which in itself defines the partition being used. I used 'select disk' so I need to select the partition once I've created it.

That's where I'm getting confused mate. When you type select disk, clean it, then create primary partition (its created on the same disk). I thought you wouldn't have any need to select partition 1 because you'd still be focused on the primary partition you'd just created...particularly as it is the only one on the disk anyway and is partition 1.

 

Just for future reference. If in a years time I decide to download whatever the latest Windows ISO is at time and perform another clean installation using this exact same USB flash drive. Whats the procedure? Do I type all the Diskpart commands in again..cleaning, partitioning and formatting the disc etc. Basically do I have to follow this exact same procedure?
Does Disk Management do the same thing?

 

Hi,

So do I. And it's really simple. Once you have the ISO file, mount it. In Explorer go to your USB stick, select all files and delete them. Go to the mounted ISO, select all files and copy to the flash drive. Done.

Cheers, *Wink

 

All this Diskpart stuff is new to me. Ive used Disk Management a bit but I know how critical Diskpart is and you have to get things exactly right or you can easily mess things up. You don't have to use Diskpart again then..but I suppose it wouldn't take that long to type the commands in again and then Mount the ISO and copy the files across. At least youd know everything was still set up correctly on the disk I suppose. Does the Clean command act in the same way as format? By that I mean if you use Diskpart then clean on a Disk is all the data on the disk wiped in the same way as it is when you do a quick format. I know it destroys the partition

 

Hi,

Exactly, once the drive has been prepped you just need to replace the old installation files with the new ones.

More like delete but it goes a step further in that it also wipes the partition table info.
Quite frankly, you do not really need to run a clean command on a off the shelf FAT32 usb stick. From the moment it's formatted, uses the FAT32 file system, has a MBR and it has the "Active" attribute set and has enough space it's usable and will boot both on legacy (BIOS) and UEFI systems.

Formatting puts a file system on the drive so it's usable for Windows (or other OS's that comply to that). A clean command wipes all info off the media. It is then in a virgin state with no readable format on it.

Cheers, *Wink

 

1. Out of curiosity can you perform exactly the same task using Disk Management instead of Diskpart? Using the Disk Management interface would be easier if it can be done I would have thought.
Because Id used Rufus in the past on this flash drive I had to convert the flash drive back over to MBR from GPT which I did using Diskpart. If I don't use Rufus again though that should never happen again and my flash drives will always remain in factory state which I believe is always MBR.
I did wonder about Disk Management on Windows 10 though. The Tenforums article on converting from gpt to mbr shows the Diskpart method which I used. But it also shows the Disk Management method and Ive noticed that the Convert to MBR option it shows in that tutorial isn't available on my Windows 10 PC and ive got the latest Fall Creators Update
2. While I was researching using Diskpart on the internet to create bootable Windows installation media..several sites mentioned an additional step of copying over bootsector files to the Flash drive as well. Is that something that doesn't apply to Windows 10?

 

Hi,

Depends on what tasks you want Diskmanagement to perform, Diskpart is much, much more powerful. Yet, yes you can set a partition to active and you can of course format to FAT32. It's a GUI interface but it's pretty basic.

Yep. Rufus should do what you want it to do not what it thinks is best for you though. I feel no need for it but then your mileage may vary as they say.

Because you're running a UEFI system, that's why.

Your aim is to create set up media. The ISO file contains those files required to launch Windows set up or to boot off of it.
That's all you need for the moment.
I'll give you an example that may help understand how it works: I have a USB key that I can use to boot any PC, bios or UEFI alike running Windows 10.
It just contains a couple of files, is FAT32 and the single partition is set to "Active". Insert it, select it as a boot drive and it will load the W10 OS on that machine. Regardless of whether it's MBR or GPT and if it's even bootable at all.
That USB drive will boot it and load W10 off the system drive inside the machine. If you want a system to be usable only to the holder of that USB key, that's one way to make it safe. There are at least a dozen others but that's beyond the scope of your quest.

The beauty of W10 IMHO is that it does not require much computer knowledge to get it going as opposed to say twenty years ago.



Cheers, *Wink

 

I thought the boot sector files that I kept seeing mentioned mustn't have been something that was needed to create a bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive or I'm sure Bree or yourself would have mentioned it. I thought it was strange how it was mentioned in some tutorials but not in others. You guys on here are really good..you'll always take the time to explain things

 

Hi,

Thank you but I feel it's the forum management that's exceptionally well thought out that makes the magic happen.
Glad to see anyone learning really.

Best and enjoy X-mass, *Wink