Installing Win7 from external usb hdd

Afran

Afran

Afran

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Joined
6 Oct 2008
Posts
757
As in the process of putting together a new system, just want to make sure this is a valid way to install the OS so we're not met with any nasty surprises.

Essentially wanting to use an enclosed external usb hdd which has contents on it, movies pictures and whatnot and would have Windows 7 (ISO) on it being the only possible bootable image with the assumption that setting the external drive as the highest boot priority would then let us install Windows 7 to a select drive, obviously not to the external drive it's self but to an SSD on which win7 will need to be reinstalled on as it's going to a completely new system.

Tried googling "installing windows 7 from external hard drive" and such, but they typically guide you how to install an os on the external drive it's self, or make the drive nothing more than a bootable file (full format, NTFS etc etc) which isn't an option here as the contents on the external drive aren't possible to back up to another drive due size (of what we own of course)

So yeh, just wanting to make sure we won't run into any issues this way :)
 
Was looking at buying a memory stick but seems a huge hassle, every local one I found such as on (deleted the name as it's a competitor I imagine, just a local store) apparently shows as a "Local Disk" not a "Removable Drive" and as such can't be used as a boot drive, supposedly due to some change for windows 8 and you'd need a memory stick NOT "ready" for windows 8 in order to work. I don't know anyone that has one so :/

So not having Memory stick, CD or CD Drive and needing this asap but having a genuine windows 7 iso and what I described to use, I'm screwed?

Essentially following a faulty motherboard issue here (as posted http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25581572#post25581572) and with a new motherboard on the way it would be a nightmare for this to then be an issue.
 
Last edited:
tnx said:
Read your mail, replied.

to go over,

Buy that USB stick.

Download Rufus.

Follow that guide to making a Win 7 USB stick.

Sling it in you new machine, when built.

Boot from USb and install..

Have fun with your new machine.
Click to expand...

Cheers, I've followed that guide, just have two things I'm unsure about as they're not covered in the guide as such and are a part of the options in Rufus

File System FAT32 NTFS, UDF or exFAT ? It defaults to FAT32, guide appears to use NTFS, however some say to use FAT32 so I'm not really sure which to select.

This part isn't on the guide at all, no idea which of the 3 options to chose;

Partition scheme and target system type

1) MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI computers
2) MBR partition scheme for UEFI computer
3) GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer
 
Well, following that rufus guide and the settings I was unsure about then set to the ones you suggested tnx it's working perfectly on my brothers computer so success :) Thanks

As for the optical drive discussion, yeah probably should've ordered one with the new system n' all, just didn't really think about it because I haven't used a CD in I don't even know how long, probably getting on 4-5 years now?

Everything is online nowadays and while I hit a wall here with the whole modern usb sticks being defaulted to a fixed drive as opposed to a removable drive in order to work with windows 8 and as a result not being a bootable drive however rufus was the way around that so thanks for the tips! :)

Now praying the replacement motherboard tomorrow isn't also faulty and all goes well!
 
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