Get the media creation kit from MS and run that. Then use the create disk to upgrade another PC and select USB drive.

Creating a CD might be less problematic. The setup kept asking for media driver during my install and I found out it was cos of my thumbdrive. Went through the whole process again to create the installation pack on another thumbdrive and it worked.


P.S. To the original TS. I did the Win7 to Win10 upgrade on my original HDD then pulled it and ran a clean installation on an SSD. It was activated without any intervention on my part.