Earlier I wrote a tutorial on how to install Vista from a USB flash drive, the method given in that post worked for some and did not work for certain drives. Recently I tried to install Windows 7 the same way using a USB Hard disk but it didn’t work. So here’s a tutorial on how to use a USB hard disk to install windows 7 (its similar to Nam’s post a while ago) .
Why use a USB drive to install Windows 7?…
- Its faster than installing from a DVD
- Can be used without a DVD drive
- It does not require a blank DVD for every O/S version released.
Even though I used a USB HDD it should work on USB FDD’s as well. Also there will be the occasion when this method doesn’t work, then check the other method I have mentioned above.
Requirements
# A copy of windows 7
# A USB drive
How to
1. Right click Computer, select Manage, and Disk Management.
2. Select the USB device. If you have a partition right click it select shrink volume and give the amount in MB to shrink it. (I had it shrunk by 27000MB on a drive which has 40GB)
3. Now there would be new unallocated space available and the space depends on the drive capacity. In this example I have about 10GB.(anything over 4GB is fine) Right click the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume, format using FAT32 file system and check “Perform a quick format”
Press finish and wait until the drive is ready
4. Now right click the volume you have created and select Mark Partition as Active
5. Mount the Windows 7 ISO using a disk imaging software (i.e Daemon tools) and copy the entire DVD into the newly created partition.
6. Restart and Enable booting of USB devices in BIOS. Now you can install Windows 7 Using the USB Drive
Note: You can install Vista by copying a Vista DVD into the new volume. To undo the changes in the USB HDD simply delete the partition and Extend the earlier volume
This tutorial not working for you? Then you may also try these:
- How to boot/install Windows 7/Vista from USB Flash/Hard Drive
- How to Boot/Install Vista from a USB Flash drive
I was wondering if you could do the same with windows xp?
Thanks for the info
It works like the same on XP, but there is no “new volume wizard”.
Only thing is that on XP, “Mark Partition as Active” is greyed out. Any help on this is appreciated.
nikopdr
I managed to do this in Windows XP with help of two programs:
- Lexar USB Flip
- EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition
(both are free)