How to Quickly Check If Your USB Is Bootable Or Not

Use the Diskpart tool to check the USB status

4 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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Key notes

Abootable USB mediawith the ISO file comes in handy if you plan to clean install Windows on your PC. In most cases, it does its job very well; however, sometimes, it may fail to boot your Windows PC or perform a clean install.

To avoid such unfortunate circumstances, it is recommended to check if your USB is bootable before restarting your PC to initiate the clean install.

How do I test if the USB is bootable is not?

1. Perform a booting test

Now wait and see if your PC successfully boots from a USB device. If the boot is successful, that means the USB device is bootable.

If the USB drive follows theFAT32 file systemand includes an EFI\boot directory, your PC will boot successfully in a UEFI system.

However, booting from a USB drive may fail due to an incompatible file system even if the USB drive is bootable.

Hence, to confirm that the USB is not bootable, you should follow the different USB booting test methods listed below.

2. Use the Disk Management tool

If the Disk Information is not already displayed in theVolumestab, press thePopulatebutton on the bottom left to force Windows to display the disk information.

As you will see, the Disk Management tool does not categorize a USB derive to be bootable, but the values of the properties tab help you identify a bootable USB drive.

3. Use Command Prompt

The Diskpart command line tool lets you examine the USB drive properties, which helps you identify a bootable USB.

4. Use Windows Powershell

So that’s how simple it is to check if the USB drive is bootable so that you begin the fresh installation of the Windows operating system.

Remember these methods may sometimes give unreliable results depending on how the bootable USB drive is created.

Hence, execute each of the methods listed here to be sure about the bootable status of your USB drive.

If your computer isunable to recognize the USB drive, refer to this guide to troubleshoot the underlying issue.

In case, you have any comments or suggestions for us, feel free to drop them in the comments below.

How to Quickly Check If Your USB Is Bootable Or Not#

How do I test if the USB is bootable is not?#

1. Perform a booting test#

2. Use the Disk Management tool#

3. Use Command Prompt#

4. Use Windows Powershell#