Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Posted By: Dennis Chung | Jan 16th @ 2:33 AM | 466,042 Views | 76 Comments
Everyone's excited about Windows 7, so am i. However, i do notice a new generation of computing equipment, commonly known as Netbooks.

They are much lower in specs. Normally featuring an Intel Atom with 1 or 2GB of ram. Now Win7 is much more capable of running on Netbooks.

This video shows you how you can install Win7 on netbooks, which do not normally come with a DVD Drive. The video shows you how to prepare a USB drive with the installation bits and install off it.
Tags: Top 10, Windows 7
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#Jan 16th @ 7:12 PM
DChung
DChung
Hi Steve456,

nope, you don't have to. Unless your USB Disk is used as a "permanent" disk in your drive configurations and you need to update your master boot code to switch between bootmgr and NTLDR.

So not in this case since i'm using the BIOS to boot the installation off the USB Stick. The BootMgr on the USB Disk will suffice. Only MUSTDO is to make the partition active, else the BIOS won't pick it up and you get a "No Boot Device Error" in some cases, or your PC boots back your startup partition's OS.

/Dennis
#Jan 17th @ 10:38 AM
Steve456
Steve456
I see. Meanwhile I was able to install Win7 on my tabletpc (which has no dvd drive built in as well). Thanks!
#Jan 17th @ 2:29 PM
Dodo
Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)
I'm a little curious how you publish a post on the 16th and have people replying to it on the 13th after your own reply on the 14th, but I'll just ignore that.

I'd just like to tell you that using that http://www.megaupload.com/?d=38XKGC3D may be even easier if you have a RJ45 port and a PXE capable network adapter (very common) CD/DVD virtualization software and another computer on the network. Smiley
I'm not so sure if it's faster/slower, though. It should be faster, considering you don't have to burn or copy the DVD image.

PS: This method also works on those old mini laptops, that can't boot of USB.
#Jan 17th @ 3:08 PM
adem3311
adem3311
I am trying to do what Dennis is doing, but I am trying to do it to an internal Hard Drive. My question is if I can make a separate partition and extract the ISO onto that partition in order to boot from it and install Windows 7 or If I have to allow a whole Hard Drive for the extraction of files? On my BIOS I can only choose to boot from different hard drives, not different partitions.
#Jan 17th @ 6:02 PM
JBones
JBones
HI,

I managed to get part way through this procedure but on 5 attempts it failed to complete.

1. Diskpart = Success
2. List Disk = Success
3. Select Disk 1 (Replace 1 with number reflecting your USB Drive) = Success
4. clean = Success
5. create partition primary = Success
6. active = Success
7. format fs=fat32 quick = Fail*
8. assign = Fail*

* Error is 'There is no volume selected' ??

I can go through the whole procedure again and it will fail at the same place, I thought ok let's just try skipping that bit and started to copy the files from the dvd to the pen, after 4-5 minutes this also comes up with the error ' Could not read from the source device' and the file it fails on everytime is Install.wim. Win7 will install no problem from the same disc that errors out when trying to copy to the files to the pen.
All this by the way is being attempted on a brand new 4gb usb pen that has not been used for any other purpose, I have no idea where to go from here?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
#Jan 18th @ 1:32 AM
DChung
DChung

Hi Dodo,

yes. You can also do so over PXE. If you have a network, you can also use Windows Deployment Services which we can also use to deploy other OSes.

You may not notice much different because both WDS and USB delivery is about the same speed, the bottleneck is at the system that handles the installation. Using the USB stick, you can only deploy simultanously with the number of sticks you have. But using WDS, you can deploy as many machines are you like over the network.

Both ways are definitely faster than Optical drives. Thanks for sharing.

/Dennis

#Jan 18th @ 1:39 AM
DChung
DChung
Hi JBones,

i had the same problems when i was doing my 300 USB Drives for internal awareness brownbag sessions.

Leaving the diskpart window alone; with the same errors you get, these is what i performed;

1. Select disk 1
2. Clean
3. <Pull out the thumb drive and plug in after a few seconds, DO NOT Close the Diskpart Windows>
4. Select disk 1
5. Clean
6. .....follow the rest of the steps and i emerged fine.

Among my list of 300 units, 4 defied the commands. BTW, they were brand new ones. At the step where you do "format fs=fat32 quick", do a "format fs=fat" instead, without the quick command.

If you consistently get the problem, your USB Drive is not working well. Change another. I have 4 damaged, out of 300, you might just be holding the unlucky piece.

/Dennis
#Jan 18th @ 1:49 AM
DChung
DChung
Hi Adem3311,

interesting idea. I have not tried this, but judging from this, you are trying to do away with any external media to install Win7 on your current OS. From the BIOs, you'll still have to select your current HDD as the boot up partition.

You'll also need to run the bootsect command to switch from NTLDR to BootMGR to point to the partition which you have prepared. While i have not tried this before, i should think it will work. Share with us your results. I'll probably find some time to try it out. Smiley

Thanks for popping this idea. Adds another fun to my daily work... i'll try find some time to try this out. Smiley
Whats your current OS? Vista??
/Dennis
#Jan 18th @ 5:17 AM
Steve456
Steve456
*** EDIT: Sorry, this is for installing from an external HDD, not internal HDD, I misunrestood Adem3311's question. ***

Hi Adem3311,

I installed Win7 from a 80gb external hard drive (because I had no 4gb usb drive at hand, only a 2gb one, and win7 install didnt fit to it).

What I had to do is to clean the hdd, but create a 4 or 8gig primary partition on it (because 80gb would be too big to be formatted to fat32). 

1. Diskpart
2. List Disk
3. Select Disk 1 (Replace 1 with number reflecting your *external* HDD)
4. clean
5. create partition primary size=4000 (here you specify the size of the partition - 4gb)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32 quick
8. assign letter=x (where x is the drive letter you want to assign to the new partition)

9. copy all installation files from the installation media (in my case d:) to the newly created partition (x:)

One more thing what I had to do, is to update the bootsector to BOOTMGR by issuing the follwoing commands. Without this it didn't work for me (but as DChoung pointed out, this step may not be needed for USB drive, but apparently it was needed for the USB HDD, at least in my case):

10. d: (where d: is the original installation media, not the newly created)
11. cd boot
12. bootsect /nt60 x: (where x: is the newly created partition)

Be sure to issue the bootsect command (step 12) as administrator. It is important to issue this command from the installation media, not from the newly created partition (which also has the boot folder as we copied it from the installation media), because you'll get an access denied error then. If you get an access denied error anyway, make sure that you don't have an open explorer window with the new partition or any file operation pending. If this doesnt help, just remove (unplug) and plug the drive in again, and try again. I had a few tries until it completed the command successfully without the access denied error, but eventually it did.

After this, I could boot from the USB HDD, and install Win7 from it to my tabletpc, just as if it was a DVD or a USB flash drive.
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