a Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 bootable USB drive

So, as you know Windows 8 is the latest operating system from Microsoft and as part of their

new features, they've put in a Windows-to-go feature which is basically the ability to

put Windows on a USB flash drive or USB hard disk and that means that you can install it

to the USB, plug it into any computer, then boot from it, and use it how you want.

So in this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create a Windows 8 bootable flash drive

or USB hard disk. There are a few requirements, for example

you must have Windows 8 Enterprise for it to work -- it isn't available in the core

edition or the professional edition of Windows 8 or 8.1.

You must have a 32GB USB storage device and the device should be at least USB 3.0. It

does work on USB 2.0, however there will be some performance issues that you could experience.

I'd recommend a USB 3.0 device.

So as you can see I'm running Windows 8.1 Enterprise edition. This is the edition you

must have to use Windows-to-go. The way that we create the USB drive is to go to the start

menu, type in 'Windows to go', and hit the Windows-to-go app.

Now this will search automatically for a USB drive -- it will search for hard disks and

USB drives. So as you can see I've chosen my USB hard disk to install this on. This

is 320GB, but you do need at least 32GB of space on your USB drive. Bear in mind that

your USB drive will be formatted during the operation so backup any data that you want

to keep. So let's go ahead and click on my USB device.

As you can see with it being a USB 2.0 device, it is coming up with a warning saying that

I should use a USB 3.0 drive. But for now, we'll just go ahead with that.

Next it will find a Windows 8.1 image. This is the image that you want to put onto the

drive. So if you have the disk that came with Windows, you can use that. Add a search location

and enter your DVD drive, or wherever your installation image is.

Choose your image, click next. You also have the option to set a BitLocker

password. BitLocker is an encryption method that can be used so that when your USB device

is plugged into a computer, it won't boot without you having to enter this password.

So for now, I'm going to tick that and enter my password.

And hit next. So this is the confirm windows. It says 'Your

Windows to go workspace will be created on my USB drive using Windows 8.1 Enterprise

edition'. Obviously this may take a while, as it has to copy a lot of data to your drive.

Also please bear in mind that your USB drive will be formatted and all your data will be

deleted, so make a backup of the data you don't want to lose.

Hit 'create'. It will sit and prepare your USB drive for

a little while and then start copying files. Once your Windows-to-go workspace has been

created on your USB drive, all you need to do is restart your computer, go into the BIOS,

change your boot order so that you can boot straight off the USB drive or USB hard disk.

Enter the BitLocker password to boot, if you chose that.

Windows will restart a few times, just to install drivers and such, and away you go

on your Windows-to-go workspace! Please like, rate comment and subscribe, and

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