Introduction
In today’s laptop landscape, the absence of DVD drives is a common sight. When the time comes to format your laptop, the go-to solution is the bootable USB. Join us as we explore the shift from optical drives to the versatile world of portable computing, where the USB drive takes center stage for OS reinstallation and crucial system maintenance.
When you purchase Windows 8 or 8.1 from Microsoft Store, you are able to instantly download its ISO image.
Whenever I purchase Windows, I always prefer to burn its ISO image on a USB or DVD. So that the next time I want to format my machine, or change its hard disk, I will have a bootable media. You will need a 4 GB USB Disk and to be an administrator on the computer you are installing the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool on.
If you need to download the ISO file for Windows 8.1 from Microsoft , then click on this link : https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8ISO , choose your edition and language and download Windows 8.1 , once your ISO file is ready, move to the next step.
1. Download the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool from here
2.  The tool requires the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 or higher. So if you don’t have the minimum requirement, the utility will automatically ask you to download and install .Net Framework. Click Download and install this feature
3. The required .Net Framework will be downloaded and installed
Once installation is completed, click Close
4. The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Setup will automatically start, click Next
5. Click Install to starting installing the utility
6. Once the installation is completed, click Finish
A shortcut to the utility will be created on the Desktop, double click to open it.
7. In the Source file box, click Browse and select the file from the Open dialog box, then click Next
Browse to the path where you have stored your Windows 8 / 8.1 ISO file and then click on Open
Once selected, click Next
8. Select USB Device to create a copy on a USB flash drive or select DVD disk to create a copy on a DVD disk.
9. If you are copying the file to a USB flash drive, select your USB device in the drop-down list and click Begin copying. If you are copying the file up to a DVD, click Begin copying
10. The selected USB will be erased, so make sure that no needed files are stored on the disk. Click Erase USB Device
11. The USB disk will be formatted and then the Windows setup files will be copied into it
12. Once the bootable USB device is created successfully, the status message will be Backup completed. Close the wizard and you are done.
Now whenever needed, and you want to format your machine, you will need to boot from this USB device. So what you will need to do is to make sure that the boot order is setup properly in the BIOS by setting the USB boot priority to be higher than the machine Hard disk.
Once this is properly configured, then plug your USB device into the computer and reboot so that your computer boot from the USB device. The Windows Setup wizard will start and you can continue reading  How To Install a Fresh Copy of Windows 8 to know how to step-by-step format your computer.
