Comment Feed for Installing Win7 using a USB Stick (Media on TechNet Edge)

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Daniel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:11:09 GMT

don't forget about turn off hibernation in win7 (if you dont use it)

to do that put this:

powercfg /hibernate off

in command window

and press enter

after that You can delete hiberfill.sys from system partition (usually drive C:/)

from my experience after that Win7 is more faster and less hard disk user ;)

Second thing is IF you got 4GB RAM and more

You can turn off pagefile.sys

and again Win7 is more willing to use RAM memory instead use hard disk drive

GOOD JOB Win7 creators !!!

greetings

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

C S — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:13:26 GMT

i was able to install using USB pen drive with UltraISO.

however there was no significant change in installation time using Kingston 4gb. is this related to hard disk? i have toshiba Portege m400 tablet PC. i have upgraded by HDD to 320GB (5400 rpm) seagate, ST93230320AS.. i checked for errors, but found none.

Re: Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Barry G. Brown — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:00:39 GMT

I have UltraISO and I think you may be right.

I have version 8.2.0 and the menu item under bootable is "Write Floppy Image"

There with the pull down menu, you select the flash drive.

In my case, I only have two options, A: or I:

The I: drive is of course my flash drive

I will try this soon but looks like it will work.

Barry

Re: Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

hsianghui — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:20:02 GMT

Anyway for those who wants to prepare a 64bit win7/vista bootable USB using a 32bit winxp, you can check out the guide I did:

http://xhdev.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/how-to-install-win7vista-64bit-on-a-hp-elitebook-2730p-on-usb/

Re: Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Cheesey — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:07:14 GMT

wow - this is AWESOME - I have such a problem running my ladies golf bags from my standard laptop

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Gschmakofazy — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:41:45 GMT

Hi,

thanks very much for your work.

As i am using XP 32bit to create a bootable USB-Stick version of Windows 7 RTM 64bit things are getting a bit difficult. - The stick is formated to Fat32 and set active.

- Windows 7 64bit is mounted with daemon tools

- all data is copyed (xcopy)

- the bootsect-command doesn't work (64bit vs 32bit i guess)

Question: Will it help if i download (MSDN) the 32bit version to get the bootsect command working?

Best

Florian

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Kira Style — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:35:22 GMT

Hey dennis,

I'm using asus motherboard p5q-le

bios: amibios v2.06

what happened is, under the'boot' menu, all my usb devices are classified under 'hard drive drives' instead of removable devices.

so when i put boot sequence to removable devices, it's not being booted.

if i set the hard disk drive seqeunce to bot my flsh drive first, i'll have the same problem as foursquaregoof: 'bootmgr is missing' after the pc restart.

any suggestions to what i shld change to my bios?

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

foursquaregoof — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:28:17 GMT

hey dennis,

i followed your steps to turn my flash drive into an external hard drive so to speak. can you give me step by step instructions on how i can revert it back to just being an ordinary flash drive please??

thanks!

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

paeppi — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:27:18 GMT

Hi Dennis,

thanks, works great for me (with build 7100 of course).

Just in case anyone else is encountering the problems I had:

When using the current BIOS (v. 2001) for the Asus Eee Pc 901 Go, you must enable the network boot option in the BIOS in order to be able to boot from USB sticks. Don't ask me why.

Also, be sure to chose the USB stick as first "Hard Drive" boot device, which is in an extra menu directly below the normal boot menu.

Regards,
paeppi

PS: Win 7 actually runs faster than XP. Only the disk space needed is ~ 3 GB higher, which might disturb owners of small SSD disks.

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

patricklo71 — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:19:15 GMT

Hey~! Dennis, big problem here.....
my USB failed the format...after that, it cannot use....it just showed " no media in the disk lst......><.....help!!!!!

Patrick

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Withheld — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:51:07 GMT

Hi,

does it work with USB External HDD? I tried all the steps and reboot and boot in USB Key, USB HDD but it didn't manage to boot in. After I restarted back into Windows Vista, my external drive is not shown in My Computer. I go into Disk Management, it prompt to set into GUID or MBR mode thingy, then i just set the default mode and the disk is shown, I tried restart again and it can't work. Did I miss anything or it just won't work for USB External HDD?

Re: Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

michi — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:14:33 GMT

format fs=fat32 quick dont work,
what is the fs my Partition number is 2,
how i can make this ?

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Justin Chan — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:54:53 GMT

Hi,
Will Windows 7 be able to install on my Dell Mini 9 with 8gb SSD? I have looked around the internet and many sites say that you cannot install to an 8gb SSd, you need a 16gbSSD. Does anyone know for sure if it will work or not?

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Zaphire — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:09:47 GMT

There is an easier way to create a bootable USB Key to install Windows 7 or Vista.

Simply use UltraISO.
You load the install DVD or an iso of the install DVD you may have downloaded into UltraISO.
Then simply use the 'Bootable' menu option to 'Write Disk image...' and having set which drive your USB Key is, press 'Write'.
You can also check the box to 'Verify' your write.

You are effectively doing what you do when you burn an ISO to a DVD but in this case it's a one step operation to 'burn' a bootable USB key without having to format it and use Diskpart etc. You can overwrite a used key or do this on any new key.

My next challenge is to find a way to say put two operating systems (or more) onto one key.
Then on booting from the key with a menu to be able to select which operating system to install.
This would be great to say have the x32 and x64 bit versions of the one operating system, to be able to install either from the one key!

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Theano — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:14:02 GMT

My Dell Mini 9 with 512 mb RAM and 8 mb SSD is running Win 7 beautifully, with Aero. It is much faster and better in every way than the XP it came with.

I had the same issue with some of my USB thumb drives not responding to the prep commands, two of them were brand new 4 gb drives, but that was the hardest part.

By the way I used vlite (freeware) to get my Win7 installation down to 1.3 gb. I took out a little bit of functionality that I miss (such as Homegroups) but mostly a lot of extras, like all the languages that are completely unnecessary.

Still the space is a little cramped, so I have gotten a new 16gb SSD and 2 gb RAM just because it was so cheap. I'm waiting for RC to repeat the whole process. I may still vlite the installation even though it shouldn't be necessary anymore, because I really don't want some of those extras like the language packs.

Great that MS is making this information available on TechNet. Win7 rocks so hard, I can never go back to any other OS.

Theano

Re: Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Mr Vee — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:41:41 GMT

The USB setup like a charm. I was able to boot on my Dell with it. The thing is, it's running XP and I thought I read there is no upgrade path from there am I right?

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Greg — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:51:19 GMT

Why could this not work similarly for other bootable programs like GWScan HD repair disk, Memtest86, perhaps XP, etc? If this will boot on its own just by taking the files from their folder and placing them on the root, why won't others? And how do I make such a thing work for other bootables on the same flash? Just askin.

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Greg — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:41:44 GMT

Well using this method gets my Kingston Data Traveler 8gb stick recognized by boot menu, but when I select it at f10, it gives a black screen with message: Verifying DMI Pool Data Invalid Partition Table. What is the workaround for this?

Also, can I place my Win7 files into a folder on the thumb drive, and place other files into other folders, as well?

Thanks. I wasn't even getting to the boot menu recognition with other tutorials having me run the bootsect command.

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

Barkas — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:25:44 GMT

How much space take this Windows on the harddisk?

Re: Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

mauro — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:35:51 GMT

Ciao Dennis!

I've given a look to the discussion and it seems there aren't the answer I'm looking for...

I've a machine like MSI Wind (rebranded) and I would like to test Win7 on it without canceling WinXp installed.

How I can run it on a secure digital as I do with Ubuntu??? No problem to connect an external DVD reader to install from it...

Please Dennis find out a solution for a your ex-ex-collegue (I worked in MS Italy 8 Yr fm 87 to 95 :-))

Thanks a lot in advance for your great help!

maurog

Thanks again!
Rutledge
Do you have any update on this? It seems to have fallen through the cracks. I would really like my thumb-drive to be removable storage again, I wasn't aware that I would have this kind of permanent change. Thanks for all your work,

Rutledge

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

JoshW02 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:29:41 GMT

Can you use this method to install Windows XP on a flash drive?

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

adem3311 — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:48:40 GMT

If you have XP and need to get Windows 7, the simplest way to do this is extract the ISO onto your harddrive and run the setup. The setup copies files to a directory on the drive before it reboots. When you reboot the computer will boot from the "install directory" that Windows 7 copied to your hard drive.

Re: Installing Win7 using a USB Stick

ubie — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:18:50 GMT

hello,

Could you please tell me how to do this with an XP pc.
Cause when i type List Disk in de command line, my pc doesn't show the USB key.
Can you please solve this problem?
thx in advance