Preparing the USB key. Follow the preceeding few steps to easily format your usb, and allow you build out os's from your usb key. This process is so effective, we were even able to build out windows 7 hosts from a blackberry storm smart phone. Simply plug in and build.

1. Open a CMD prompt
   • Note: This needs to be a Vista or Windows 7 OS
2. Start the disk partitioning utility by entering “DISKPART”
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3. Its important to know which logical disk your usb key shows up as. To find the correct disk number simply type in "List Disk" and you will be presented with a list of all drives on your pc. Find the usb drive letter and remember the disk number
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4. You need to select the USB disk as the item to be actively worked on, enter “SELECT DISK <disk # from above>”
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5. We’ll then clean out all of the partitions on the USB key, enter “CLEAN ALL”
6. Now we’ll setup a single primary partition, enter “CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY”
7. We now need to select that partition to work on, enter “SELECT PARTITION 1”
8. Now we’ll set it to ‘active’ so it is seen as bootable, enter “ACTIVE”
9. Then we’ll format it, enter “FORMAT FS=FAT32 QUICK”
10. Finally we’ll commit the changes and exit, enter “ASSIGN” then “EXIT”
11. You can now exit the CMD prompt (or do all of the keys at once while you are here)
12. Now is the easy part, all you need to do is drop the build onto your usb key.
    • Mount the ISO image that is on your distribution server. I personally use DAEMON Tools for this, but use whatever you like – we’re just trying to get to the files inside the ISO. Then Select all of the files inside the ISO, and copy them to the root of the USB key