How to Create Bootable External Hard Drive Easily (3 Ways)

Creating a bootable external hard drive allows you to carry your operating system wherever you go. Whether you need to recover from a system failure or install an OS on a new device, having a bootable drive at hand can save you time and frustration. It’s especially useful for IT professionals, developers, or anyone who frequently deals with system issues. By learning how to create a bootable external hard drive, you ensure seamless portability and readiness in emergency situations.

How to Create a Bootable External Hard Drive

There are two main reasons why users might want to create a bootable external hard drive.

1. Portable System: Some users want to carry their operating system with them, making it easy to access their files and systems from any device. If this is what you need, Method 1 or Method 2 will work for you.

2. Bootable Repair Disk: Others may want an external drive that can boot their computer in case of system failure. For this purpose, Method 3 is the way to go.

Each method has a step-by-step guide. Pick the one that suits your needs and follow the instructions below for more details.

Method 1. Create Bootable External Hard Drive by Reliable Cloning Software

The easiest and fastest way to make an external hard drive bootable is to use reliable software to create a bootable external hard drive. AOMEI Backupper Professional is a great choice. It allows you to clone the disk containing your system to an external hard drive easily, and after cloning you can boot your computer directly from the cloned disk.

Thus, you can easily get a bootable external hard drive without a lot of complicated operations. As a professional disk cloning software, it also has the advantages below.

It is recommended that you make a disk backup for your external hard drive in advance because the cloning process will wipe the data on the target disk. Then you can follow the graphic tutorial below to create a bootable external hard drive simply. Download AOMEI Backupper Professional and install it. If you are a Windows Server user, please try the AOMEI Backupper Server.

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer and make sure it can be recognized. Open AOMEI Backupper Professional and click Clone > Disk Clone.

The Professional edition supports cloning both data disks and systems disks from MBR to MBR/MBR to GPT, or GPT to GPT/GPT to MBR. If you only want to clone data disks, you can pick the complete free Standard edition.

Step 2. Choose the disk-containing system as the source disk.

Step 3. Choose your external hard drive as the destination disk.

Step 4. Confirm your operations and click Start Clone to create bootable external hard drive.

📌Notes: Edit Partitions: If your target disk is bigger than the source disk, you can adjust the partition size to make full use of the space. SSD Alignment: When cloning to an SSD, check the SSD Alignment option to improve its performance. Sector By Sector Clone: This option copies every sector, including unused or damaged ones. Make sure the target disk is the same size or larger than the source disk.

This software also offers System Clone and Partition Clone features to meet your different needs. Download it to discover more useful features.

Method 2. Create Bootable External Hard Drive by Windows To Go

The second method is to use the Windows built-in feature Windows To Go to create a bootable image of the external hard drive. This feature copies all system-related files to the external hard drive to make it bootable. Thus, you can plug a USB drive into your computer and boot your computer from the external hard drive. But this method has these limitations below for the Windows version and USB drive you are using.

Requirements for Windows version.

• If you are using Windows 10, your Windows 10 should be Enterprise, Education, or Professional Edition.
• Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise Edition has this feature.
• Other versions or operating systems don't have the Windows To Go feature.

Requirements for USB drives.

• A high random read/write speed to run Windows workloads smoothly.
• Have been tuned to ensure they boot and run on hardware certified for Windows 7 and higher.
• Have a manufacturer's warranty and should continue to run under normal usage conditions.

If you are using the correct version of Windows and have a certified external hard drive, you can follow the steps below to create a bootable external drive. Please note that this process will format your external drive and you need to backup your important files on the external drive in advance.

Step 1. Download the related installation ISO file from Microsoft. Connect the external hard drive to your computer and make sure it can be detected.

Step 2. Type control panel in the search box at first and click Control Panel to continue.

Step 3. Find Windows To Go feature and click it to continue.

Step 4. Choose the external hard drive and click Next.

Step 5. Click Add search location to search for the ISO file.

Step 6. Select the ISO file to make the external hard drive bootable.

Step 7. Choose whether to set a BitLocker password. If you want to set a password, then enter your password, but you need to type your password to unlock the drive in the future. If not, click Skip to continue.

Step 8. Confirm all your operations and click Create.

Wait for the process to finish. When it's done, a bootable external hard drive is successfully created. 

Method 3. Create Bootable External Hard Drive by Command Prompt

If you want to create a bootable external drive in Windows 10, 8, and 7 and you are also good at using the command prompt, you can choose this method to help you. But this method is more complicated than method 1 and you need to be careful not to enter the wrong commands during the process to prevent losing data or damaging system files. 

Step 1. Insert the external hard drive into your computer and make sure it can be recognized. Type cmd in the search box right-click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator to continue.

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, enter the following commands in sequence and press Enter to execute them respectively.

• diskpart
• list disk
• select disk 1 (take disk 1 as an example, it stands for your external hard drive)
• clean (this command will clean the selected hard disk)
• create partition primary (make the disk primary)
• select partition 1
• active (boot partition)
• format fs=ntfs (makes the disk formatted as NTFS file system)
• assign letter=g (g is your drive letter for external hard drive)
• exit

Step 3. Insert the DVD with the Windows installation files into the computer and then run CMD again.

Step 4. Burn the installation files into the external hard drive with the commands below.

• d: (d is the drive letter of Windows installation DVD)
• cd boot
• bootsect /nt60 G: (G is the drive letter of the external hard drive)
• Xcopy d:\* . * g:\ /e /f /h (d stands for the letter of Windows DVD and g stands for the letter of the external hard drive )

If you consider this method to be a little bit complicated, you can also try the software AOMEI Backupper Professional which is mentioned in method 2 to help you, its Create Bootable Media function will achieve the goal easily. 

Why Create a Bootable External Hard Drive?

Nowadays, more and more users have the need to create bootable external hard drives. Usually, it comes for the 3 reasons below.

🚩Preventing downtime: If your computer doesn’t boot due to issues like system corruption, hard drive failure, or a virus, a bootable external hard drive can help you quickly start your system without hassle. 🚩Safeguarding your data: A bootable external hard drive acts as a backup, allowing you to recover from disasters and prevent data loss in case your computer encounters serious problems. 🚩Access your system anywhere: With a bootable external hard drive, you can access your system from any device, giving you the freedom to use your files and programs without needing your main computer.

FAQs About Create Bootable External Hard Drive

Tech Terms You Need to Know

1. Bootable Media: Refers to any external storage device, such as a USB or hard drive, that contains an operating system and can be used to boot a computer.

2. Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment): A lightweight version of Windows used to install, deploy, or repair Windows. It’s an essential component in creating bootable drives.

3. Disk Utility (macOS): A built-in macOS tool used to manage disks and volumes. It allows you to format, partition, and create bootable drives on Mac.

Tips for Creating a Bootable External Hard Drive

1. Use a Reliable External Drive: Always choose a high-quality external hard drive with fast read/write speeds. This will significantly improve performance when booting or installing the OS.

2. Keep the Drive Dedicated for Booting: Avoid using the bootable drive for regular storage to prevent accidental deletion of important files or boot data.

3. Verify Boot Process After Creation: Once you’ve created your bootable external hard drive, test it by booting your system from it. This will confirm that the drive is functioning properly.

Summary

This guide explains three methods to create a bootable external hard drive. You can use the built-in Windows To Go feature, but it has specific requirements for both the system version and the USB drive. If you're comfortable with command lines, you can also use Command Prompt, but be cautious to avoid data loss.

The simplest option is to use AOMEI Backupper Professional, a trusted disk cloning software. By cloning your system disk to an external hard drive, you’ll be able to boot your computer directly from the cloned drive.