Installing Windows 7 from a USB Hard Drive.

Posted by Mark Tomlin on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Mark Tomlin
Published on 2011-06-21T01:25:19Z Indexed on 2011/06/21 8:24 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 251

Filed under:

Windows

|

hard-drive

|

usb

|

installation

|

gparted

I have a Western Digital Passport External Hard Drive (320GB) that I want to partition to keep the data on, but use some of the free space to install Windows 7 onto my desktop computer. Microsoft has given me the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition ISO to download. I would like to take the External HD and partition it so I can fit the ISO image onto it. How would I go about doing this?

Trying to use GParted to partition the external hard drive has caused a chicken or the egg problem. GParted can't see the drive unless it's mounted, and when it is mounted it will not allow me to do anything to the partition. When it's not mounted, GParted can't see the drive at all and as such can't do anything to the drive.

Once the drive is correctly partition, how do I go about moving the ISO image Microsoft gave me to my USB External Hard Drive? Are there any special steps that I need to take?

I am using Ubuntu 11.04 & GParted 0.7.0, on my Chromebook to do this. Any support would be appreciated.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about Windows

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about hard-drive

Move smaller hard drive to partition on a larger hard drive

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My parents bought a new hard drive for a laptop that I've owned for several years. It's much larger than the current one, so I plan on splitting it up to dual boot it with Ubuntu. I have no problem with partitioning a drive (I always keep a LiveCD handy), but my question is this: how can I go about… >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More
Using an ATA-100 Hard Drive with a Thermaltake BlacX External Hard Drive Dock

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is it possible for a Thermaltake BlacX HDD Dock to connect to and recognize an ATA-100 Hard Drive? I know that the specifications for the BlacX say that it only supports SATA & SATAII, but I was hoping for one of three things: 1) for it to still work even though it isn't supported 2) for there… >>> More
backup hard drive image on external hard drive for Windows 7

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hello, I am looking for a backup tool for Windows 7, that will allow me to backup my laptop’s hard drive on an external hard drive as an exact image. In a case of a problem with the main hard drive, I would like just to swap the drives and to continue to work using the backup hard drive. Thanks >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More