Install Windows Xp To A Usb Flash Drive
RECOMMENDED: As you likely know, unlike its successor, none of the Windows 7 editions allow you install Windows 7 on a USB flash/hard drive and then boot Windows 7 from the USB. For the uniniated, is completely different from installing Windows on a USB.
In the first scenario, we use the USB as a bootable media to install Windows, and in the second one, we install Windows on to a USB drive and boot Windows from it. If you want to install Windows on a USB flash drive or USB hard drive, this is the easiest way to install Windows 7 on USB and boot from it. You don’t need to download complex scripts or execute commands in order to install Windows 7 on to USB. In this guide, we’re going to show the easiest way to install Windows 7 on a USB flash drive or USB hard drive and boot Windows 7 from it. Things you need: # Windows 7 ISO image file (32-bit or 64-bit) # WinToUSB (check Step 2 for download links) # 16GB+ USB flash drive or hard drive (8GB drive should do fine but can’t confirm) Installing Windows 7 on to USB flash drive or hard drive Step 1: Kick start the procedure by connecting your USB flash drive or hard drive to your Windows 7/8 PC.
Please backup all data before continuing further, as the drive will be erased. Step 2: Next step is to download software by visiting. WinToUSB supports both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7/8. Run the downloaded setup file and then follow the straight-forward on-screen instructions to complete the installation. You can install WinToUSB either on Windows 7 or Windows 8. Step 3: Launch WinToUSB software.
On the home screen, click the button next to ISO file box to browse to Windows 7 ISO image file and click OK button to open it. And then select the edition of Windows 7 that you would like to install on the USB. Click Next button to proceed to the next step. Upon selecting the USB drive, you’ll see a warning dialog with “Selected device needs to be formatted.
Are you sure you want to continue?” message. Click Yes button to continue. Step 5: Finally, you’ll be asked to select the system partition as well the boot partition on the USB drive.
If you haven’t partitioned your USB drive, you can simply select the same partition (full drive) as system partition as well as boot partition (refer the picture). And if you have two or more partitions, please select a partition to use as boot partition and then another partition with at least 16 GB of space as system partition. Click Next button to begin installing Windows 7 on to the USB drive. This process might take hours depending on your USB drive’s speed and overall system performance. In order to boot from this bootable Windows 7 USB, you need to enable boot from USB feature in the BIOS/UEFI. This procedure worked miracles for me. I bought a Gigabyte Brix i5 5200 real cheap not knowing there is NO place for a hard disk.
You can only install an mSATA card inside. So I wanted to use my 500 GB external 3.5 inch drive (in a usb case) to run windows. I followed these instructions and windows installed seamlessly and in less than 15 minutes! I did not have to change any bios settings. When I powered up my Brix it saw the drive and immediately Windows 7 started the setup. I am now installing all the various drivers from the DVD which I copied to a USB stick.
I am thrilled to death! Thank you so much for this. John Jackson says. “Memory card inside a Card reader” is most of the times seen as a USB device, since most of the card readers are really a USB device.
Warning, with order, when more than one USB storage is plugged more if sometimes are only plugged some of them. Some BIOS can boot from more than one USB device, most of them set it as FIRST disk, but other do not, worst others let the internal HDD as First disk that can cause a lot of problems when booting from USB. To solve that problem, Linux opted to use references to the disk not by using the number of the disk (/dev/sd$), it uses a GUID (UUID also called), also can be use a channel id /dev/By but that makes you need to connect to the same port; that in Windows is not an option, it allways references by number ID seen in the BIOS list so make sure your USB boot is the FIRST (best trick is not to have any other USB device connected). So if you try to install from a SD card inside a reader to a USB stick they can be TWO usb devices (the reader can be a USB) so try without the reader open chasis and disconnect it (for laptops it can be more hard, some are soldered) other option is to SWAP drives id (Grub2 bootloader can do that and is not affected by disk order, then chainload, etc) Sorry i can not be more specific hardware is not allways the same on every computer!. A way to test if your card reader is USB (or if it acts like that on boot) is to take a memory card (do not know less possible size, but 64 MiB may be enough), install on it the Grub2 bootloader then reboot and ask BIOS to show boot devices list if it appears, go to BIOS and see if BIOS explicity has an option to boot from your card type (Boot from SD, etc) if the BIOS only has USB Boot, then your card is seen as a USB device, so be warned. If your card reader is USB, maybe you need thar card be (or not be) present to be able to boot Windows from USB stick / USB HDD. Also check if BIOS has different options called USB Floppy, USB HHD, etc on the boot menu booting a USB HDD like if it where a USB floppy is prone to fail.
Install Windows Xp Usb Flash Drive Download
As i said, there is out there a lot of different hardware. Hope i could let clear what to check in order to be sure your boot device is seen as the FIRST device else booting Windows can fail miserably (bootmgr not found, BCD read erros, blinking cursor over black background, BSOD, error codes, etc) and on some rare motherboards is the opposite, being FIRST or SECOND, etc (a different position then when windows was installed) fails. Good luck to all!. Martin says. Installing to a USB stick now! Awesome app to make something that’s a hassle into a breeze. Only thing worth mentioning is that the install was fine until selecting the system & boot partition.
I kept getting the “Insufficient space” error with default settings. It was set at 14Gb default on a 32 (28.81)Gb stick.
The solution was as simple as changing the default 14Gb setting to match the stick. For my 32 stick i had to select 28Gb (Max). After that the install went fine.
Hope this helps someone. 🙂 Coldstone.
Salman Mansoor says. I inherited a HP Elitebook 2650p which is a laptop that has a high incidence of chipset failure. With all the garbage laptops that HP sells, I don’t know why anyone would buy one. There is a laundry list of HP laptops that have the chipset problem just like back when they had the NVIDIA chipset problem. These laptops stop recognizing the hard drive with a 3F0 error but thanks to this how to, I am running Windows from a external hard drive so the laptop is not a complete waste. It’s a little clunky with a external hard drive attached but it works. Johns says.
Recently I bought a Lenovo laptop (50-80), and I did the process instructed above in this article from my desktop (win7 x64) to an external 2TB Western Digital HDD which I have partitioned into three ntfs partitions. When I finish the process and connect my WD USB HDD to my Lenovo laptop I always get BSODs. What’s up with that?
Also the reason why I started searching for a guide like this was because I got different errors when trying to install win7 to my laptop, mostly that it’s stuck at initializing my USB hard disks even if I don’t have any connected (I’m installing from an SD card in a card reader o.O). So my thought is, maybe my laptop has some USB issues? Something in the bios that prevents me from doing stuff?.
Tylor says. To everyone who’re experiencing issues, I tried WinToUSB to install Windows 7-32-bit on USB again without any issues. I would like to mention a couple of things here. Please make sure that the version of your host Windows and the version you’re trying to install on USB are same. That’s, for instance, if your PC is running Windows 7 32-bit, please try to install Windows 7-bit only on your USB and not 64-bit and vice versa. I had formatted the drive in FAT32 before using it. I am trying to reproduce the error some of you are getting.
I request all of you try it again.