Is it possible to put a full installation of Windows 10 on a USB flash drive?

I have a laptop in which the internal drive bay has been destroyed, but the rest of the laptop works fine. I was wondering if it's possible to do a full installation of Windows 10 on a USB flash drive.

I'm aware of Windows To Go, but I'm not sure if it's what I want. I don't need a "portable" installation of Windows, I intend for the flash drive to be permanently connected to the computer. I would prefer for the system to function as normally as possible.

If I can't figure out how to do this, I'll probably just install Linux onto the flash drive instead.

Solution 1:

The official "Windows To Go" feature from Microsoft is only for Windows Enterprise or Education and requires a certified USB flash drive (which are expensive).

The other alternative requires:

• The Rufus freeware
• A Windows ISO

I describe below the procedure using Rufus. An alternative product is FlashBoot, that you may try if the installation as done by Rufus has problems. A write-up of the process using FlashBoot can be found in the ghacks article How to create a running copy of Windows on USB Flash Drives.

Create and use the USB with Rufus as follows:

• In Rufus, select the USB device you want to install Windows on in the Device box

• Click Select and point at the Windows ISO to install

• Click on the "Image option" box and select "Windows To Go"

• Click "Partition Scheme" and select "MBR"

• Click "Target System" and select BIOS or UEFI.

• Click the "Start" button for Rufus to format the drive and install Windows

• Wait for the process to complete and then safely remove the USB drive from the PC

• Leave the USB connected to the computer

• Restart the computer and enter BIOS

• Set the PC to boot from the portable USB by changing the boot order

• Save BIOS changes and check that the boot from the USB does succeed

Notes:

• Starting with Windows version 1809 the USB needs to be formatted as type NTFS and not FAT32, since the file is larger than 4 GB
• Booting from "Windows To Go" or the Rufus-generated boot USB will require answering some dialogs, so is never as quick as from hard disk.

For more information see How (and Why) to Run Portable Versions of Windows.