Install windows from external Hard drive, yes or no ?

scotslad

scotslad

scotslad

Associate
Joined
20 Jan 2009
Posts
811
If I have an empty brand new external usb 3.0 mechanical hard drive (Like I do right now), can I copy the windows 7 x64 iso image file straight onto that using my current pc and then afterwards be able to plug the drive into my new pc that doesn't have windows installed and then will it detect the external drive and the copy of windows ISO that is saved on it and continue the install process ? ?, I know i may need to change the boot sequence in bios which is fine, I know how to do that.

(I mean just to like save the ISO image of windows file straight onto the empty external hard drive and then try to get the new pc to detect the windows iso file first and then I can carry on installing it on the new system).

Its an ISO type file of windows file if that helps any ?

Can someone tell me please ?

I also have and external dvd drive I could use too but I thought the usb 3.0 external HD was possibly best bet but I have no idea at all with external drives, first time for me and as I say the new pc has no operating system on it.
 
Last edited:
Ive done it with a USB pen drive, would say its the same i remember i had to to activate the bois to pick it up though when i did win 7 a year ago.
 
It's possible, but far easier to do it with a USB pen drive. Just buy one and use that.

Use Rufus to 'burn' (extract) the ISO to the USB pen drive.


What you'll need..

-8GB USB3 (or USB2) pen drive.
-Windows 7 ISO file
-Rufus
 
bledd. said:
It's possible, but far easier to do it with a USB pen drive. Just buy one and use that.

Use Rufus to 'burn' (extract) the ISO to the USB pen drive.


What you'll need..

-8GB USB3 (or USB2) pen drive.
-Windows 7 ISO file
-Rufus
Click to expand...

Doing this works for HDD's too, I have it done at work which saves a metric ton of time.

Stoner81.
 
Stoner81 said:
Doing this works for HDD's too, I have it done at work which saves a metric ton of time.

Stoner81.
Click to expand...

thank you all :)

And thank you too Stoner81 ;), glad to hear I can use the new usb 3.0 external drive I have just bought :) thats good, I also have a good genuine kingston 32GB usb stick too but its only usb 2.0, so I was thinking with the external HDD being usb 3.0 and the new computer only has usb 3.o ports then it would be better to use that rather than the usb 2 stick, right ? (well slightly quicker I mean).

I guess I could copy the windows ISO onto both the HDD and the USB just to be on the safer side and hope that one works.

p.s @bledd, I have used rufus before so I know what you mean, cheers ;)
 
I have just gave another try with the actual dvd copy of windows 7 I have.
I checked the file type of that and its a UDF type.

For some strange reason using the same USB 3.0 port I tried my new external portable SAMSUNG SE-208GB/RSBDE dvd writer drive (usb 2 it is), it booted windows 7 all the way to the install screen of windows and would have continued should I have wanted to, I had to obviously set bios to boot from that dvd drive and then reboot but yeah that seems to be working, weird weird weird, eh ??

Now, this is obviously on my pc here that has both the choice of dedicated usb 3 and 2 ports but for the tests I stuck to the USB 3 ports obviously, usb stick idea doesnt seem to want to work yet this dvd drive looks like it is doing the job.

I have to just pray now the same thing happens with the new system that is entirely usb 3 dependent, hmmm, I wonder why this happend, could it just be a flook and wont work on the new system ?? :confused:

I forgot, could it probably be working like that because windows is already on here, right ? what you think anyone at all ? could that be why maybe even though I used the usb 3 port ?
 
Last edited:
Pretty sure this is the fix, after a couple of days and hours and hours of reading/trying/testing I eventually think this will do the job nicely :)

Ok, I think I have the answer as this has been fully tested with myself on USB 3.0 ports but I cant be fully 100% sure it will work 100% on my new pc which only has USB 3.0 and not a sniff of usb 2.0 or anything else, once that is tested and if it works then yes its a 100% solid fix but right now I cant see why it wouldn't work as its been tested right now on a USB 3.0 port on my current pc here.

Ok, so, there are a whole lot of free freeware tools available that will make up a bootable USB pen/stick drive but I found one I prefer which is this one here > https://www.zotac.com/page/zotac-winusb-maker < (download and save it to your pc), its a very simple case of dragging and dropping files into the little application, and not only does it make any external drive bootable it also takes care of adding the complete windows/dvd/ISO file too, I tested it both on an old USB 2.0 stick flash drive and a new external USB 3.0 Hard Drive and it worked for both perfectly.

There is one other major thing though, to trick/fool the USB 3.0 ports into working as USB 2.0 ports you need to go into your bios then go to advanced then USB then look for something called "XHCI", disable it just for now, it tricks the usb 3.0 ports to working as USB 2.0 ports.

After you are done installing windows 7 remember to go back into that same area of the bios as before but this time set XHCI to smart auto or auto or whatever your bios has available that is similar.

This was done on a pc with an ASUS motherboard but I wouldnt imagine that should make much of a difference to other manufacturers motherboard bios options too, I would imagine they should have the similar options somewhere.

I really do hope this works 100% fully which I expect it will when I try on the new machine within days and yes please go ahead and test/try yourself and you will also see it works.

Extremely handy information for people with these same problems like myself :) Good luck and please let us all know how you get on.
 
UPDATE :

I found the asus utility/tool that creates a fully bootable windows 7 usb stick ISO or dvd ISO from using your own windows disk and/or usb stick or blank dvd, its called "ASUS_EZ_Installer_Win7", I got it from looking on the motherboards support section of the Asus site for the actual motherboard and then looking through the options to download drivers & tools, for some reason it isnt listed under windows 7, its listed under "others" for the choice of operating system and then Ultilities and there you find a utility that has the description "Use this tool to create a Windows 7 installation file with USB 3.0 drivers preloaded for 100 series motherboards.", once downloaded and extracted the utility is called "ASUS_EZ_Installer_Win7", and thats it, it works.

It add's the USB 3.0 files to the bootable saved windows 7 USB stick or dvd that you tell it to create, I just hope it works perfectly :)

P.S, I noticed you still need to go into your bios before attempting the install though and disable the USB option called XHCi before it allows the system to fully boot into the windows installation, obviously you need to set your boot drives too in bios so that the machine will boot from the drive the usb stick or dvd is in too, after its all done go back into bios and Enable the XHCi usb option, actually mines was set on smart auto, so I just put it back to that.

I know its much the same as the last post I made but at least this one seems to be more perfect and from ASUS too, so I will try that first, hopefully have the goods tomorrow or saturday :)

P.P.S, I think I would use this fix before the last one I posted as this includes/adds the windows 7 USB 3.0 drivers into the disk image it creates, so this must be the one to use.
 
Last edited:
bledd. said:
It's possible, but far easier to do it with a USB pen drive. Just buy one and use that.

Use Rufus to 'burn' (extract) the ISO to the USB pen drive.


What you'll need..

-8GB USB3 (or USB2) pen drive.
-Windows 7 ISO file
-Rufus
Click to expand...

My apologies for not contributing to the thread myself but I have a question on this.

Is it possible to add a folder to the USB Drive after doing this with Motherboard Drivers + Other main install files such as display drivers or will it mess with what Rufus program does ?
 
alphaomega16 said:
My apologies for not contributing to the thread myself but I have a question on this.

Is it possible to add a folder to the USB Drive after doing this with Motherboard Drivers + Other main install files such as display drivers or will it mess with what Rufus program does ?
Click to expand...

I do this myself, I use rufus to put Windows on a USB stick and then just copy and paste whatever files I want over to it (some in a folder, some not), whether it's the activation key in a text file or the odd small program that I want to run.

It won't affect the booting of the USB stick in anyway.
 
scotslad said:
thank you all :)

And thank you too Stoner81 ;), glad to hear I can use the new usb 3.0 external drive I have just bought :) thats good, I also have a good genuine kingston 32GB usb stick too but its only usb 2.0, so I was thinking with the external HDD being usb 3.0 and the new computer only has usb 3.o ports then it would be better to use that rather than the usb 2 stick, right ? (well slightly quicker I mean).

I guess I could copy the windows ISO onto both the HDD and the USB just to be on the safer side and hope that one works.

p.s @bledd, I have used rufus before so I know what you mean, cheers ;)
Click to expand...

Sorry I should have clarified...

USB 3 sockets do not work when installing Windows 7 from a USB device unless you load the drivers when the machine asks you to. You will need to use the USB 2 sockets on the machine but those will work with a USB 3 device without a problem.

The portable HDD's I use at work are just USB 2 and work perfectly fine.

Stoner81.
 
alphaomega16 said:
My apologies for not contributing to the thread myself but I have a question on this.

Is it possible to add a folder to the USB Drive after doing this with Motherboard Drivers + Other main install files such as display drivers or will it mess with what Rufus program does ?
Click to expand...

Yes, you could do what you like.

I keep a copy of Snappy Driver Installer in a folder called 'Drivers' on mine.

-Takes up around 10GB of space alone, so bear that in mind when selecting a USB drive.
 
alphaomega16 said:
So it doesnt just scan and update then.
Click to expand...

No it doesn't.

Drivers are stored in Driver Packs which are archived using 7Zip are are downloaded from DriverPacks.net from within the software using a torrent connection. The main software is only about 1.5MB ish in size and everything else is drivers.

As a result you will have tens of thousands of drivers if not more available which is beyond crazy but sooooo useful it is not even funny!

Stoner81.
 
It does indeed work just fine, as everyone has stated, and you might get a bit of a speed boost, but you will be limited to the speed of the USB so its not really worth the effort.

If you want to install from HD, or you are just trying to get the fastest way to get it installed, then perhaps install from HD will be an idea, but use esata and boot from the HD that way?

For a completely useless idea, but one that does work, if it is a little bit more of me being bored than anything, is that I bought myself a couple of those tiny little mSata drives and I have got a couple so that I can try them out with my old Atari Falcon, just for giggles of course, but anyway, what I have also done, is burned my windows ISO onto one of these little things ( I used a transcend 16GB one ) and when I booted from it, I had the instalation setup come up and I then I went through the process and in just a few moments, I was pretty much done.

Ok, it wasnt quite THAT quick, but what I have done, issimply hidden that little drive once it was done, so its always going to be there if I need to reinstall it again, very much like a recovery partition / disk really.

I think that as long as the device that you want to use, can have a boot written to it, and the BIOS can see that device, then I should have thought that you can use anything you like to boot / install from. The only question I suppose is whether you will get any actual benefit from it, or if you are just like me, and bored out of your skull and want to try any stupid ribbish just to kill some time? LOL
 
With Snappy Drivers, I found this to be perhaps the most perfect of them all. I used a 16GB USB 2 stick, and now I am using a USB 3 - 32GB one.

I have no doubt, that very soon, I will be using a 64GB stick.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom