Built my computer, now for the OS! I have questions

Hey guys, some of you may remember me from this thread. I've had all of the parts for some time now, and yesterday a buddy of mine came over (same one who has been helping me throughout all of this) to help me out while I put the machine together.

We successfully put everything together (I'm probably far more proud of myself than I should be), but I still need to load the OS onto the system. I will be downloading Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit and using either a USB flash drive or burning the .iso to a disc and going that route.

Only problem is, I'm not 100% positive the disc drive on my laptop works, so I don't know if that's an option for me. I would like to make a purchase some time today, and I'm on limited time.

So my questions:

1. Does it make that much of a difference if I load the OS onto a USB or disc?

2. Would one medium be faster than the other (I mean the actual process of loading the OS from the medium to the HD)?

3. Anything else I need to keep in mind while I do this?

Thanks in advance, you guys are awesome.

EDIT: Some info that may help people in the future:

So you can't actually create a bootable USB drive FOR A PC from a Mac. All of the methods posted above work if you're trying to get a Windows OS on a Mac machine (i.e. via boot camp), but not for creating/setting a bootable USB for Windows. A couple of different google searches got me the evidence, which I can post/send if anyone really cares. What I wound up doing was burning the iso to a flash drive, taking it to another much older Windows computer and burning the iso from the flash drive to a DVD then taking the DVD to the computer.

1. Doesn't make a difference.
2. Installing from USB media should be significantly faster.
3. Not really! Once you've actually made a bootable USB drive, you're pretty much good to go.

1. It won't make any difference

2. USB or disc may be faster depending on the speed of your devices, hard to say.

3. If you go the USB route, you need to make it bootable. I like using Rufus. Download your ISO from Microsoft, point Rufus at it and tell it which USB device you want to use, and hit Start. Then Rufus will do everything else. After that, plug it into your new build and then boot from it and install Windows.

If you haven't bought Windows yet and can get 8.0 for cheaper than 8.1, do it. 8.1 is a free upgrade. Try not to overpay too much...personally I just get keys from MSDN resellers (grey area), or for students there is always DreamSpark.

@mb: Fortunately, I am lucky enough to have DreamSpark and all of the fun stuff it offers. Also, I am working from a Macbook Pro, so Rufus will not work. I think I can use the standard Disc Utility that comes built in, but I am not positive on that.

Does anyone have experience with using a Mac to do something like this? Is there anything special I need to do?

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/103874/creating-a-bootable-usb-of-windows-8-1-on-os-x Google is your friend.

@alexw00d: I've been using Google, but I couldn't find anything as recent as what you sent... and you probably used a better search than I did. Thanks!

You'll also need to be sure your BIOS is set to recognize a USB stick as your boot drive. Access your BIOS on boot, and find where it sets your boot priority, then set it to USB if it has that option. You may have to have your USB stick already set up to be bootable with the OS on it, and plugged in to your computer, before your BIOS will recognize it as a bootable source.

Hey guys, I actually got my rig up and running this past sunday and it works phenomenally! The only reason I'm bumping this is just to share some info that may help people in the future:

So you can't actually create a bootable USB drive FOR A PC from a Mac. All of the methods posted above work if you're trying to get a Windows OS on a Mac machine (i.e. via boot camp), but not for creating/setting a bootable USB for Windows. A couple of different google searches got me the evidence, which I can post/send if anyone really cares. What I wound up doing was burning the iso to a flash drive, taking it to another much older Windows computer and burning the iso from the flash drive to a DVD then taking the DVD to the computer.

Running off a usb stick should be faster than running it onto a disc.