Koala Editor's Review

Many times I've been asked "how to create a Bootable USB flash drive" and every time I found it quite difficult to give a straight answer. That's because there are several tools and guides out there related to 'install Windows from USB flash drive' and even if I'm an advanced user, some were quite hard to understand or they just didn't work. Luckily, not long ago, I've found an easy way to create bootable USB flash drives (thumb-drive) with a tool called Koala.

You can find out more about Koala if you read the full review or you can download Koala here. Koala requires .Net Framework 2.0, you can get it here - in case you don't have it already.

Koala was developed to be as easy as possible to use. There are actually just a small number of steps to follow in order to create a bootable USB flash drive in order to install (reinstall) your operating system. Why would someone want to install Windows from a USB flash drive?

Well, there can be more reasons. The most frequent reason is because your machines might not have an optical drive or it may not work. Another reason can be because installing from a flash drive is faster then using a CD/DVD, and the list can continue. Let's see how to use Koala.

Run it and insert a USB flash drive (equal or larger than 4GB) into a port and your Windows disk into your optical drive. Use the 'Scan' button to find the source drive and the destination drive. Koala should find them both and display them. The source drive should be your Windows disk and the destination drive should be your USB flash drive. You can can press now the 'Start' button and wait software to complete the whole procedure. It will take around 10 minutes to finish.

Koala works fine with Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP, but also with Windows 2000, Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2 as described by the producers. More to this, the application is portable.

Pluses: Ease to use; it's free;

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: One of the easiest way possible to create bootable USB flash drives.

1.0