Installing Windows on an external hard drive. How to make an external USB HDD (hard disk) bootable using standard Windows tools? Install windows 7 external hard drive

To the question How to install Windows 7 from an external hard drive given by the author Mikador the best answer is In general, create a 4 gig partition on an external hard drive (a little more is better - a little larger than the size of a DVD disk - 4.5-4.6 gigabytes completely) with the fat 32 file system, make it active (through computer management (control panel-administration-computer management-disks and on this same section on the external hard, right-click and select make it active)) and just copy the files from the Windows disk. So I put it on a netbook.
q | A | p
Guru
(4789)
1) With a similar approach, installation and launch do not take place from under Windows as from a flash drive.
2) "only the question was there was no carrier except external hard ..."
Excuse me, but what have I described?

Answer from Illustrious[guru]
well, if the BIOS supports booting from a USB HDD, no problem. Here is a ready-made Windows for installation from USB
MSKD.RU - DownloaD »SOFT» OS ASSEMBLIES]
WINDOWS 7 - USB 4 v9.10
[Date] 09/16/2010 1:40 PM
Program Name: WINDOWS 7 - USB 4
Software version: v9.10
Latest version of the program: v9.10
Interface language: Russian / English
Treatment: not required, integrated.
Updates: underway
System requirements:
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) processor;
1 gigabyte (GB) (for a 32-bit system) random access memory (RAM);
16 gigabytes (GB) (32-bit) hard disk space;
Supports booting from USB-HDD.
Description:
A directory for installing Windows7 from a 4 GB USB drive.
Designed for clean installation from a USB stick.
A set of additional programs:
DATA-ADMIN7 + mini WPI-ZVERv3.8
Contains:
Original image of Windows 7 (x86 rus / eng)
Copy everything from the WINDOWS7 USB 4GB directory to a USB flash drive.
Reboot and set the BIOS to boot from HDD to USB in the BIOS menu.
At the first reboot, we set everything back, i.e. from USB to HDD.
After Windows 7 is fully loaded
Run additional programs from the DATA-ADMIN7 folder.
From the WPI-MINI folder, run the wpi.hta file and select programs for silent installation.
The assembly is intended:
To facilitate the installation of Windows7 for novice users (downloaded the directory, copied it to a 4GB flash drive and re-installed within an hour, the main user software is assembled and there is no need to rack your brains with assembling the flash drive).
For the advanced, those who want to bypass the process of installing, linking, and verifying a USB stick as it takes time.
It is also intended for owners of laptops without a CD-ROM.
And for those who are convinced that the boot time from CD-ROMa has passed, because booting from USB is more convenient, faster and more reliable.
Convenient and proven assembly, a real LEGO constructor.
All the simplicity is that all files can be copied, deleted, supplemented, without any pre-boot actions, through different utilities.
Having copied the contents of the downloaded WINDOWS7 USB directory once to a USB flash drive, you will no longer waste time installing boot actions (burning, extracting an image, ticking the check box after recording, oh! The disks are over):
- Familiar words? You will forget the disk drive at all. Moreover, it is convenient and fast, as much as USB 2.0 allows. For example: you need to uninstall the program - delete it, you need to download it - copy it. It is better to use the DATA-ADMIN7 directory to create your own folder. You can edit the bootloader and WPI itself, but if you can. In general, everything is copied as in a regular folder on your computer.
Edited from September 2009.
Limit, dampness, exhausted.
Everyone who tested - Thank you !!!
We wish you a fast download!

Installation takes place in automatic mode,
i.e. there are no unnecessary questions during installation, the entire installation takes place in a few clicks:
Auto download information
1. We expose, in the BIOS, boot from USB - the download has started.
2. We make a partition of the disk and indicate which partition to boot.
3. At the first reboot, set, in the BIOS, back, boot from the HDD.
4. Enter the username, computer and password.
5. Uncheck the automatic activation box (although this is not necessary).
That's it, this completes the installation and activation.
The minimum loading time is 13 minutes (computer - 2 cores, 2 gigabytes).

I have given up on a DVD drive for a year already, and the trends in netbooks speak of the correct decision. But I was faced with the question of how to install the operating system without DVD. A flash drive died out of place, and when I went to the store for a new one, I accidentally caught my eye on external Seagate Expansion drives, the 250Gb version of which cost literally 500 rubles more than an 8Gb flash drive (2323 rubles). And the size and the whole of which did not really bother the pocket of the jacket.

Dimensions: 141 x 18 x 80mm
Weight: 0.16 kg

But as it turned out, installing Windows 7 from a USB HDD does not work in the same way as with USB FLASH. Having figured out and checked the performance, I am sharing information with you.
Works for both Desktops, Notebooks and Netbooks.

HDD preparation
Cutting and preparing HDD partitions;
Copy Windows 7

HDD preparation

You can make a bootable disk, install Windows 7, and then erase it and then use the HDD for your needs. Or it can be done much more conveniently:
If you do not mind 4 gigabytes of space on the External HDD, then the Disk can be cut into two parts, in our case I did just that, giving one part for the Windows 7 distribution, which will always be at hand.

Splitting and preparing HDD partitions

1. Go to:
Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management (Disk Management)
Find Disk 1 (if you have several hard drives in your system, find the one that is equal to the size of your External HDD)

2. Select our external HDD drive:
- Right click with the mouse - Delete volume;
- Right click with the mouse - Create a simple volume;
In the window that appears, select the volume size of 4300 Megabytes (Under the Distribution section), and click next,

In the next dialog, if necessary, select the drive letter, and click next. In the new dialog, you need to format our new partition (FAT 32), click next and you're done.

After that, you need to make the created section active, for this:
- right click on a section - make the section active.
Now our External HDD looks like this:

By the same principle, we format the second partition on the disk, best of all in NTFS. but don't make it active.

Copy Windows 7

Copying a Windows distribution to your boot disk has never been easier.

If you have a DVD:
- Just open your installation DVD, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of your External HDD;

If you have an ISO image:
- Just open your installation ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools, select all folders and files, and copy them to the active partition of your External HDD;

That's it, your External HDD is ready to act as Bootable media, just reboot, and in BIOS Set it as Primary Boot Device. a specific External HDD, or just USB HDD, depending on the BIOS type. Save the changes and proceed with the installation of your Windows 7.

UPD: For cmd lovers(thanks theproof)
diskpart

List disk
select disk no.
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs = fat32 quick

Sometimes you need an additional copy of the OS on removable media. The standard installation will not work due to the limitations of the system, so you will have to perform additional manipulations using various third-party software. Today we will walk you through the whole process step by step, from preparing an external hard drive to installing Windows.

All actions can be conventionally divided into three steps. To work, you need three different programs that are distributed on the Internet for free, we will talk about them below. Let's get down to familiarizing yourself with the instructions.

Step 1: Prepare the external HDD

Usually a removable HDD has one section where users save all the files they need, but if you need to split the OS and other files, that is, create an additional logical drive, where Windows will be installed, we recommend that you read the following instructions:

If for some reason AOMEI Partition Assistant does not suit you, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with other representatives of similar software in our other article at the link below. In similar software, you will need to perform exactly the same steps.

Now let's use the built-in Windows function for working with logical drives. We will need it to create a new partition from the newly selected free space.

Open up "Start" and go to "Control Panel".

Click on the section "Administration".

In the window that opens, select "Computer Management".

Go to section "Disk Management".

Find the required volume, right-click on the free space of the main disk and select Create Simple Volume.

A wizard will open where you need to click on "Further" to go to the next step.

In the second window, do not change anything and immediately move on.

You can assign your own letter if you want to, and then click on "Further".

The last step is to format the section. Check that its file system is NTFS, do not change any more parameters and end the process by clicking on "Further".

That's all. Now you can proceed to the next algorithm of actions.

Step 2: preparing Windows for installation

As mentioned above, the usual installation process when starting the computer is not suitable, so you will have to load the WinNT Setup program and perform certain manipulations. Let's take a closer look at this:

Download a copy of the selected version of Windows in ISO format so that you can later mount the image.
Use any convenient program to create a disk image. Read more about the best representatives of such software in our other material below. Just install such software and open the downloaded copy of Windows in ISO with this software.

In chapter " Devices with removable media " v "My computer" you should have a new operating system disk.
Run WinNT Setup and in the section "Path to Windows installation files" click on "Select".

Navigate to the disk with the mounted OS image, open the root folder and select the file install.win or install.esd depending on the version of Windows.

Now, when in the second partition the letter of the disk automatically appeared, where the bootloader will be installed (it is not recommended to change it), in the section below "The disk on which the OS will be installed" Press "Select" and specify the hard disk partition that was created in the first step.

Click on "Installation".

After that, a new window will open, where next to the item "Use BootSect for bootloader" instead of "ALL" should be exposed "BIOS" if a classic BIOS is used on the computer. Holders of UEFI from the drop-down menu will need to select the appropriate item, and then click "OK".

After restarting the computer, you will be prompted to select an OS to boot, select the desired option and follow the standard procedure for setting up a new platform.

Step 3: Install Windows

The last step is the installation process itself. You do not need to turn off your computer or somehow configure the boot from an external hard drive, since everything happens through the WinNT Setup program. All that remains is to follow the standard instructions. On our website, they are described in detail for each version of Windows. Skip all preparatory manipulations and go directly to the description of the installation.

Read more: Step-by-step installation guide.

After the installation is complete, you can connect an external HDD and use the OS installed on it. To avoid problems with booting from removable media, you need to change the BIOS settings. The article below describes how to set all the necessary parameters using a flash drive as an example. In the case of a removable disk, this process does not change in any way, just remember its name.

Hello admin! I have a regular computer with Windows 10 installed on an MBR disk, normal BIOS, that is, not UEFI. Also included is a 1TB USB portable hard drive. Tell me, how can I install Windows 7 on this external USB drive, but so that the seven has a separate bootloader and is located on the most portable USB hard drive? I want Windows 7 to be a portable operating system and bootable on any computer or laptop that I connect an external USB drive to. On your site, but all of them feature GPT style hard drives.

Hello to all! So, the question is clear, let's get down to business.

We have a simple computer with Windows 10 installed, we connect a USB portable hard drive with a volume of 700 GB to this computer.

Computer disk management

Disc 0 is the hard drive ( MBR), desktop computer with Windows 8.1 installed, drive letter (C :) ( if you have Windows 10 installed, then you need to do everything exactly the same).

Disc 1 is a USB portable hard drive, drive letter (D :), 700 GB, MBR. To install Windows 7 on a USB portable hard drive, be sure to connect the drive to a USB 2.0 port (black).

The USB portable hard disk contains important files and cannot be formatted.

Download and install it, then launch it.

In the main window of the program, right-click on the external USB drive (D :) and click on the "Resize" button

Move the delimiter to the right freeing up free space (100 GB) at the very beginning of the USB portable hard drive and click OK. 100 GB is just enough to install Windows 7 (you can allocate more or less).

We press "Apply" and the program starts working.

"Go"

Operation completed successfully!

Run the command line as administrator.

diskpart

lis vol (we display all partitions of drives connected to the computer in the list).

lis dis (we display a list of disks connected to the computer, we see that Disk 1, this is our external USB disk with a volume of 700 GB)

sel dis 1 (select Disk 1 - external USB drive)

create par primary size = 100 (create a 100 MB hidden System Reserved partition, where we will place the Windows 7 boot files).

format fs = NTFS (format it to NTFS file system)

activ (make it active)

assign (assign a letter)

create partition primary (create a partition from the remaining free space, we will install Windows 7 on this partition)

format quick fs = NTFS label Win7(we format it to the NTFS file system and assign the volume label Win7)

assign (assign a drive letter to the partition)

exit (exit from diskpart)

Disk management

Double-click on it and attach it to the virtual floppy drive (L :).

WinNTSetup3

Now it's the turn of the program.

Run the program and in the main window, in the first field (Path to Windows installation files), click on the "Select" button,

in the explorer window that opens, find a virtual floppy drive (L :) with Windows 7 files, go to the L: \ sources folder and select the install.wim file with the left mouse, click "Open".

Note: Please note, you can choose to install any release of Windows 7.

In the middle field (Disk where the bootloader will be installed) click "Select".

In this window, select the partition we created in the command line, the hidden System Reserved partition, the size of 100 MB (the system assigned it the drive letter E :), click on the "Select folder" button.

In the lowest third field (Disk where Windows will be installed) click "Select".

In the explorer window that opens, select the partition we created (F :) 100 GB and press the "Select folder" button.

Installation

In the "Use BootSect for Boot Loader" field, select BIOS.

Check the box next to "Allow native USB booting of Windows 7".

The process of installing Windows 7 to the (F :) partition of the USB portable hard drive begins.

And it ends successfully.

We reboot your computer or laptop.

We enter the computer boot menu and select the USB portable hard drive for loading.

We are entering the final phase of installing Windows 7.

Windows 7 is installed on a USB portable hard drive.

Disk management.

Installed in this way on an external USB drive, Windows 7 has its own separate bootloader.

On this computer, Windows 7 will boot from an external drive just like a normal operating system.

When connecting a USB hard drive to another computer or laptop, you will need to set the first-order boot of the computer device from the external USB drive and Windows 7 will boot on this computer device, you just have to install the drivers. But I want to note that it is best to use Windows 8.1 as a portable operating system, since it is compatible with almost any computer hardware.

As if installing the OS is not something difficult, and my opinion is that it is enough to be friends with the computer and have two more hands in addition to the head - one right and the other left. To install the OS on your computer, you need or.

But what if there is neither one nor the other, the optical drive does not work, or you have a netbook? After a little reflection, I remembered that I have an external usb-pocket for HDD and I also have a free old HDD 2.5ʺ. In general, if you have a pocket hard drive, you can make it bootable accordingly.

For this purpose, there are utilities that can be used to do this, but I decided to use the standard Windows tools.

There are a lot of descriptions and videos on the network, but, unfortunately, there is one problematic point, which the authors for some reason omit. Well, okay, I'll start in order.

Preparing an external HDD

Before working with a disc, be sure to transfer and save the necessary information from this disc to another medium.

All settings will be carried out using standard Windows 8.1 tools. There may be some differences from Windows in previous releases, but if there are, they are not significant.

First of all, I want to note that making an external HDD bootable is much more convenient. I divided the disk into two partitions, one contains the Windows distribution, the other is for my needs.

1. We plug in the usb pocket and go to Disk management.

Attention! All data on the disk will be destroyed!

If you have Windows 8 installed on your PC, 1 right-click: Start / Disk Management;

If Windows is earlier versions, open the Computer Management console: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Expand Storage Devices / Left-click Disk Management.

See screenshot:

2. Choose an external HDD. Be extremely careful, if you mistakenly select another disk, all information will be destroyed.

In my case, this is Disk 1. As you can see in the screenshot, the disk is divided into two volumes (partitions):

3. Delete disk partitions:

4. Create new disk partitions. One for the distribution kit, the second will remain for your needs:

Right-click on a free disk space, in the context menu, select the command Create simple volume:

5. In the window that appears, the Simple Volume Creation Wizard, press the button Further:

Specify the volume size of 4404 megabytes and click Next. Please note that the size is indicated in megabytes. And since 1 gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes, then 1024 × 4.3 = 4403.2 megabytes we get for the distribution section (my weight is 4.18 GB, for example);

In this dialog, you need to format a new partition (FAT 32), press Further then Ready:

6. After that, you need to make the created section active (do not forget, because the computer will boot from this section), for this:

Right click with the mouse, in the context menu, select the command Make a section active.

To a confirmation request, we answer YES.

The external HDD looks like this:

7. In the same order, we format the second partition on the disk, best of all in NTFS, but do not make it active.

Copying Windows to an active partition of an external HDD

Copying a Windows distribution to a bootable external HDD is pretty straightforward and easy.

From a bootable DVD:

Open the installation DVD in Explorer, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of the external HDD;

From ISO image:

Basically, an ISO image is a kind of archive. So you can open it with any archiver. You can also open an ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools. Well, if you have Windows 8 or 8.1 installed on your PC, then open it with Explorer. Select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of the external HDD;

That's it, your external HDD can act as bootable media. It is enough to reboot and set the USB HDD as the boot priority in the BIOS (depending on BIOS type).

When you turn on the laptop, press F2, to ;
Go to the tab Boot;
V Boot Priority order install USB HDD;
We press F10, and then OK.

If it didn’t work, then check out the article.

Save your changes and proceed with.

As you can see from the text, preparing an external HDD for installing Windows is quite simple. And my description will not be complete if I do not talk about one problem, which for some reason is rarely written about on the net.

Making the hard disk partition active

When I divided the hard disk into two volumes, for a reason unknown to me, none of the disk partitions could be made active. This function was not available in the context menu.

The active partition is the partition from which the computer boots.

There are two ways to make a section active:

Using the Computer Management console. We have already considered this method, but, unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the Make section active command is not available. The solution to this problem is also not difficult. Remember how to prepare a bootable USB flash drive from the Command Prompt.
Using the Command Line, via the utility diskpart... The second method is a little more complicated, but more efficient. You just need to do all the operations carefully and slowly.

Setting the active partition using the command line

1. Connect an external USB HDD;

2. Click on Start / All programs / Accessories / Command line... Right-click and select Run as administrator.

3. In the window that opens, write the command diskpart and press the button Enter... A prompt will appear for working with the utility - DISKPART>;

4. Enter the command list disk and press the button Enter... You will see all disks installed on your computer;

5. We select the disk with which we will work. To do this, enter the command select disk 0, where "0" is the disk number in the list, ie. for my external drive there will be a command select disk 1... Click the button Enter, the message Selected disk 1 appears;

6. Next, you need to find all partitions on the selected disk. Enter the command list partition and press the button Enter.

7. We select the section with which we will work. Enter the command select partition 1, where 1 is the number of the section in the list, i.e. for the section that we make active. Click on Enter, the message appears Section 1 selected.

8. We mark the selected section as active, for this enter the command active... Click the button Enter, the message appears DiskPart: partition marked as active.