It was a rainy Tuesday when my friend Dave’s old Dell desktop, still running Windows 7, started wheezing like a tired dog. "It's taking fifteen minutes to boot," he groaned. "And my tax software is on there. Help."

Type diskpart , then list disk to find your USB drive number.

"Watch the magic," Elias whispered to himself.

: A powerful, open-source partition and disk imaging tool.

Ensure your BIOS is set to "Legacy" or "CSM" mode. Windows 7-era machines often struggle with UEFI-only USB boots.