If you’re one of eight thousand people lucky enough to attend PDC 2008 last week and receive the ultra-cool 160GB portable hard drive with “the goods” then I have some extra good news for you, your hard drive can also become a bootable Windows 7 install disk. The best part is that you don’t even have to delete any of the existing files on the drive since there’s about 90GB free of the 160GB drive.
This is especially handy if you’re trying to install Windows 7 on a device without a DVD drive or if you don’t have any blank DVDs to burn the ISO on.
Of course this guide also works if you have an existing portable USB hard drive that has enough free space to partition and a copy of a Windows 7 ISO, which I’m sure you can get *wink*.
Step 1: Click open the Start Menu, right click on “Computer”, “Manage”. Open the “Disk Management” tool.
Step 2: Find the USB hard drive, should be 149.05GB. Right click on the volume and click “Shrink volume”. Shrink the volume by 10000MB.
Step 3: Right click on the new unallocated volume, “New Simple Volume”, format as “FAT32″. Check “Perform quick format” unless you have time to waste.
Step 4: Right click on the new volume, “Mark Partition as Active”.
Step 5: Mount the Windows 7 ISO from the USB (\Windows7\ISO\6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CFRE_EN_DVD.iso) using your favorite ISO tool (I use Daemon Tools Lite).
Step 6: Copy the entire DVD directory into your newly created volume.
Step 7: Now take your USB drive and tell the PC to boot from USB. The Windows 7 setup should appear.
To restore your USB drive to the previous state and reclaim the 10GB of space, simply delete the new volume created and extend the original volume to consume the entire 10000MB now unallocated.
54 Comments
Orion
Nice article, although I didn’t get to go to the PDC, so I’m not sure how useful this article is for me
.
NIXin
Great! Great! Great!
Nam
I have been doing that for vista on my 8GB Cruzer since vista’s launch. But I didn’t know it work for USB Hardrive as well as from a separate partition. Now to think of it. We are no longer restrict to just one installation media. 10 GBs of space is more than enough to house VIsta, 7, and Server 2008 installation with each in its own folder. (whichever needed, move the installation files on to root of that partition.)
Similarly, 20 GB space can use to house both 32bit and 64bits of vista,7, and 2008 all together. Isn’t it awesome?
Thank so much Long, your solution is much more simple and easy to set up.
Dmitry
Great post thank you! I look forward on trying this to get Windows 7 on my DELL 9 Mini.
Braden
This is just a beta right?
Chetan Palrecha
Superb…post buddy….
I bought a new WD portable HDD recently, & I’m happy that I could use it for booting Windows 7 from that….
thanxxx a tonne… !!
Cheers….!!
keep posting….bye…
William
Im very confused – why FAT32 and not NTFS?
Christopher L. Estep
With the falling prices for USB Flash drives (especially the larger 8 GB size), that, combined with this trick, will make the external USB flash drive the install medium of choice for technicians (especially in enterprises with many far-flung desktops). Say that you have a half-dozen such thumb drives, with each a different color.
1. Blue – XP and XP64
2. Red – Vista and Vista64
3. Green – 7 and 7×64
4. Orange – Server 2003 R2 and Exchange
5. Yellow – Server 2008 and Operations Manager
6. Black – Utilities and Suites (including Office, Diskeeper, antivirus, firewall, etc)
Put them on a keychain, and you have a portable installation and upgrade toolkit for the enterprise from the server closet to the smallest laptop (even laptops support booting from USB).
Darren Tebo
Is it possible to boot from a vhd natively in 7 yet? I am very curious about it.
Darren Tebo
What am I invisible everywhere that I go now all of a sudden? At least tell me you don’t know if you don’t. Sorry for asking.
Frank
Maybe you should just wait a little more than just 6 hours before expecting an answer? This isn’t a chatroom, after all.
I’m quite curious about VHD booting myself, though.
Long Zheng
From what I can see in the current build of Win7, you can’t boot from VHD yet. You can mount though.
William
hi Long – could you do a write up on how to do a dual boot vista/7 ? would be VERY appreciative! thanks!
Darren Tebo
Ok, well I imagine we will see something about it at winhec or at beta time.
thank you for answering. 
Ice Cream
I didn’t get to go to PDC2008, but I do have a Windows 7 ISO Image file, and I’ve got it in Virtual PC. Does anybody have a product key?
Vincent
You don’t need a key. This is a pre beta version. There is no key needed
Mike
Try mounting a VHD first and see if u can make it “active” as you can with partitions or see if there is an option to make it boot? Maybe even try playing with the boot manager
Mike
Ok loyal people. Get your VHD’s ready because i’m about to push you in the right direction to get them booting (hopefully). You guys are the guinea pigs.
here’s your starting point.
bcdedit.exe /hypervisorsettings
bcdedit.exe /? FORMATS
Look for the VHD options. There you have it.
Mike
ignore the /hypervisorsettings as it just sets hypervisor debug options.
Darren Tebo
it says that it cannot install windows on a surfaced virtual disk
Long Zheng
@Mike: I tried playing around with the VHD settings in bcdedit but couldn’t figure out how to actually get it to boot.
Darren Tebo
Ok, I have it mounted in the boot manager now. The command is bcdedit /set device vhd=[yourmainosdrivehere:]\ and voila!
Testing to see if it installs now. 
Remember to set it as active.
Darren Tebo
Wait a moment, let me double check. Don’t try this just yet. I tried something else before and I had to do startup repair lol.
Darren Tebo
Alright, sorry no luck.
I don’t understand what is missing here lol. 
Mike
hey. way to go testing it out. I spent a few hours trying to get it working. I KNOW i’m missing something. What I did was copy the {current} entry and then deleted what I thought were unessessary entries, and modified the others. I have it showing up in the boot menu, but when selecting it, to start I get an error stating that the application failed to load, or something like that. this is what my menu entry looks like:
Windows Boot Loader
——————-
identifier {82b2fc4c-adf5-11dd-960a-9c4f077f75bd}
device vhd=[G:]\Virtual\WinXP\winxp.vhd
path [G:]\Virtual\WinXP\winxp.vhd
description WinXP Virtual
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
nx AlwaysOn
pae ForceEnable
sos No
debug No
I’m Thinking that the boot loader at this time cannot recognize drive letters. (not sure) and I am having trouble finding what the GUID is for the G: to try, so what I am doing is going simple and just putting everyhing on the C:\
Mac God
Mac has this ability at least a decade ago. LOL.
Boot from zip disk, firewire HD, USB HD with much easier way.
Lokendra
what is key no in windows7
Gary
Regarding the bootable USB HDD issue: I must be missing something. I thoght the BIOS in PC’s are not capable of booting via USB. If it is possible I would do a claen of WIndows 7 on myMAXTOR 4 +. USB drive and run off this drive when I want experiment with Windows & beta. Help?
Llynne
Gary,
Take a look at your bios, boot options.
or look for bios upgrades….. a lot of PCs allow you to boot from usb & to choose from several bootable drives.
Llynne
lokendra,
I think you mean the product registration key number given when windows seven was downloaded
Parthiban
I didnt tried this. i think it will be usefull for all thankssss………
Richard
Well I tried every which way but this doesn’t appear to work. A build 7000 quirk? Who knows? I get as far as choosing which partition to install W7 on and then I’m told that Windows won’t install from a USB device. Yes I’ve checked my BIOS and all is good, it appears to be W7 that won’t play nicely.
Thoughts?
Richard
I just realised I’m a doofus.
Move along people, nothing to see here…
Paul
Could someone please explain step 5 for me? I think there is more too it cause I can’t get anything to boot
Leo Prakash
You can also use winrar to extract the ISO image. No need to mount on virtual drives.
Eddie
So I’m trying to install Windows 7 with a USB key, and it’s not working. I can format the USB drives within Computer Management, but when I right-click on the partition, “Mark partition as active” is dimmed and unselectable.
Help! Where am I going wrong?
Simon
What if I’ve already deleted the contents – is there a link where I can download all the files again?
‘I know they are going to be big’
Silly me!!
Thanks
-Simon-
Jordan
@eddie look and see if your usb key is already marked as active
seawolf
Great post thank you! now my compaq cq40 use win 7 with no problem
greg
If I format and copy over a Win7 install partition as given above on my 8 gb data traveler 100, don’t I need to copy over a boot sector command to get it to boot as first device? Or is copying as a mounted device placing the boot sector where it is needed? Other less inventive tutorials all require running diskpart commands on boot sector files.
Can I do all of this to it’s own primary partition on the USB stick, then create another non-bootable data partition to carry my apps and files around?
Geek Squad tells me I can put multiple bootable O.S. on the same stick and use a boot manager to select the one to boot from. However I cannot imagine wanting anything except Win7 all-sku’s for the foreseeable future, and so having just that in its’ bootable partition and my apps/files in a data partition would make me the perfect travel stick.
Milman
I need to say this I’M IN TROUBLE !! Well, I copied all the files to my USB HDD and deleted the Image file. I tried to boot with the USB HDD but it did not boot up and I’m stuck. I used Nero to create an Image but my friend told me it needs to be an exact same image that I got from Microsoft before I deleted it. HOW CAN I CONVERT THE LOOSE FILES BACK INTO THE SAME BOOTABLE IMAGE SO I CAN BURN IT ON A DVD?
Bappan
U cant buddy, While copyind there is something called boot image which is not sopied, so the nero or any other software needs that image to make the disk bootable. U cud have used Barts BBIE(Barts Boot Image Extractor to get the image). U need to download the iso again.
Bashar
dears,
I have tries the method above, it did NOT work, I did exactly as the instructions, It has failed, any one has any ideas how to make it work?????????
Waiting
Curtis
I have a question I was hoping someone could answer.
I bought an adapter that would allow one of my Hard Drives to be accessed via USB. I bought one and it works great, but I decided to install Windows 7 Ultimate build 7068 and my computer said that it could not install a fresh copy of Win 7 unto a USB device.
Okay, if that was the problem I decided to remove my CD RW drive and connect the hard drive instead. I then connected the CD-RW drive to the USB adapter and it worked perfectly. I was able to use the CD drive to install onto the hard drive.
I then decided that I didnt want to have my computer looking like a disassembled piece of junk, so I thought, “Hey, why not reconnect everything how it was, and just boot up Windows 7 from USB”.
I put the computer back together nicely, but upon boot options it gave me 2 options:
Vista/Longhorn
Windows 7
So I chose Windows 7 only to have the computer reboot. Am I doing something wrong? Did I mess up the Main Boot Record since Windows 7 was installed from IDE instead of being connected from USB?
Is there a way to get my computer to allow me to boot up without the restart?
Let me know if anyone has any ideas or needs any more relevant information.
gfx
@curtis
Windows 7 will NOT boot from an usb device, windows is very annoying that way.
You can boot the installdisk from USB (very usefull for netbooks without an cd/dvd drive)
but that has been possible for a long time via the computers bios (depending on mainboard)
More then a decade ago there were Operating Systems you could install to a harddrive plug that one in another computer and it would work (slightly depending on supported hardware offcourse)
Windows tries to repair itself by numerous rebooting and foreced reactivation but it still remains an annoying pOS
Birrra
Is it possible to install the full Windows 7 system (not just the installer) on an external hard disk ?
jess
remove media disks
press any key to restart?
damn…
PV
I just tried this with Win 7 RC1 to a USB hard drive. Win 7 does not allow installation of the OS to a USB hard drive. You can install the OS to non-USB drives from installation files contained on a USB flash/hard drive, but just can’t install the OS to a USB drive and run off that drive. The installation files run fine, Win7/M$ just doesn’t allow it.
Computer user
its work great thank you very much
Computer user nº2
Simply nothing happens when i select to boot up from usb drive…. any ideas?
Lijo John
I try to install Windows 7 (RC1) on my external USB HDD (Seagate Free Agent). When I select the USB HDD partitions, the installation gives an error message saying that, not able to find the driver. So I routed the driver path for the USB mass storage. After it gives another error message saying that, windows can’t install on USB or IEEE 1394 devices…
Any solution guys…..
greg
This tutorial is for using USB drive as an INSTALLER for Win7. I use my USB flash to install so haven’t tried it on larger drive, but I know that MS has blocked the installation of the full Win7 OS onto any USB device.
Keithj
I was hoping to set up my laptop to boot from the internal HD with XP Pro, or from a USB external with Win 7.
Win 7 refused to install on the USB hard drive, so I swapped it with the XP one, and installed Win 7 to the new one as the “resident drive C”. That will happily boot Win 7.
XP won’t boot from its previous drive C in the USB slot. Win 7 in the USB slot starts, and gives a BSOD error.
I think it’s clear that, as said above, you can’t boot Windows from USB.
I’ve got Fedora Linux on a USB flash drive, complete with e-mail config and all sorts, and that boots no problem.
noobhacker
how come i formatted the new unalocated harddrive,it unable to boot(map = green,bootable is blue)
Leave a Reply
Tip: make your PDC 2008 USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk - istartedsomething | WinSe7en
[...] attended PDC, here’s how to make that hard drive you got do more! See the original post at: Tip: make your PDC 2008 USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk – istartedsomething Tags: Boot, [...]
Make your PDC 2008 USB HDD bootable Windows 7 install disk
[...] 160GB portable hard drive with “the goods” then, here’re the steps to to make the disk a bootable Windows 7 install disk [...]
USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk - Windows 7 Forums
[...] USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk This article refers to the Hard Drives issued at PDC, but it also applies to using ANY USB hard drive as a bootable disk. "Tip: make your PDC 2008 USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk If youre one of eight thousand people lucky enough to attend PDC 2008 last week and receive the ultra-cool 160GB portable hard drive with the goods then I have some extra good news for you, your hard drive can also become a bootable Windows 7 install disk. The best part is that you dont even have to delete any of the existing files on the drive since theres about 90GB free of the 160GB drive. This is especially handy if youre trying to install Windows 7 on a device without a DVD drive or if you dont have any blank DVDs to burn the ISO on. Of course this guide also works if you have an existing portable USB hard drive that has enough free space to partition and a copy of a Windows 7 ISO, which Im sure you can get *wink*. Step 1: Click open the Start Menu, right click on Computer, Manage. Open the Disk Management tool. Step 2: Find the USB hard drive, should be 149.05GB. Right click on the volume and click Shrink volume. Shrink the volume by 10000MB. Step 3: Right click on the new unallocated volume, New Simple Volume, format as FAT32″. Check Perform quick format unless you have time to waste. Step 4: Right click on the new volume, Mark Partition as Active. Step 5: Mount the Windows 7 ISO from the USB (Windows7ISO6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CFRE_ EN_DVD.iso) using your favorite ISO tool (I use Daemon Tools Lite). Step 6: Copy the entire DVD directory into your newly created volume. Step 7: Now take your USB drive and tell the PC to boot from USB. The Windows 7 setup should appear. To restore your USB drive to the previous state and reclaim the 10GB of space, simply delete the new volume created and extend the original volume to consume the entire 10000MB now unallocated." Tip: make your PDC 2008 USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk – istartedsomething [...]
Free Gadget News » Turn any USB flash drive or HDD into a bootable Windows 7 installer
[...] November Long Zheng – all around smartypants and good guy – released a handy tutorial on turning the PDC hard drive that Windows 7 was being distributed on at the time i…. As luck would have it, he discovered that the process works with any old [...]
Installing Windows Seven from a USB disk - Vikram’s “Muse”
[...] has a tutorial here as [...]
Two Geeks and a Blog :: Helpful Tips Microsoft :: Win7: Install w/o an optical drive
[...] you. The folks over at istartedsomething.com put together a comprehensive tutorial on how to setup an external USB hard drive to act as a bootable install device. Why is this a cool thing? Well, netbooks typically don’t ship with optical drives [...]
Turn any USB flash drive or HDD into a bootable Windows 7 installer | The Ultimate Geek Blog
[...] November Long Zheng – all around smartypants and good guy – released a handy tutorial on turning the PDC hard drive that Windows 7 was being distributed on at the time i…. As luck would have it, he discovered that the process works with any old [...]
News Zone » Blog Archive » Turn any USB flash drive or HDD into a bootable Windows 7 installer
[...] November Long Zheng – all around smartypants and good guy – released a handy tutorial on turning the PDC hard drive that Windows 7 was being distributed on at the time i…. As luck would have it, he discovered that the process works with any old [...]
citrix xenapp / xenserver / terminal server blog » Blog Archive » Make your USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk
[...] Check it out here “Make your USB hard drive a bootable Windows 7 install disk” [...]
Windows 7 Beta on Acer Aspire One Install | Leave a Penny, Take a Penny
[...] it didn’t work on my USB HDD (I’m not sure why). I then followed the instructions posted on istartedsomething.com to get my HDD bootable – I opened the Windows 7 .iso file in WinRar and extracted the files to [...]
Windows 7 Videos | Running Windows 7
[...] Boot my Mini from a USB harddisk [...]
在戴尔Dell mini 9上使用U盘安装Windows 7 Ultimate beta1 « Work-Life Balance
[...] 写完后，看到另一篇文章，不需要diskpart命令，http://w ww.istartedsomething.com/20081104/tip-make-your-pdc-2008-usb-hard-driv e-a-bootable-windows-7…。 [...]
Go test drive Windows 7 RC today - istartedsomething
[...] Those who have a portable USB hard drive can follow my simple guide to making a super-handy bootable USB Windows 7 install drive. With this one can install Windows 7 RC in around 10 [...]
Install Windows 7 using a USB Flash Drive | Flash Drive
[...] Follow the Step by step guide here. [...]
Go test drive Windows 7 RC (7100) today | Window7s
[...] Those who have a portable USB hard drive can follow my simple guide to making a super-handy bootable USB Windows 7 install drive. With this, I installed Windows 7 RC in around 10 [...]
Help! 64 bit or 32 bit? - Windows 7 Forums
[...] install from a bootable pen drive and have never tried this method, but Im sure it works the same. Heres the guide. Additionally, here is a guide to install from pen [...]
How To: Install Windows 7 and Keep Your Current OS (Dual Boot) | Techerator
[...] (or any optical drive, for that matter) it is possible to create a run the installation disc from a bootable USB hard drive or a bootable USB flash drive as [...]