How To Install Windows 7 To USB External Hard Drive [Must Read]
Posted August 11, 2010 – 9:34 pm in: Windows 7 GuidesWhile one can install Windows 7 from an external hard drive or USB, one can’t install the same to an external hard drive. For all those users waiting for a workaround to install Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to an external hard drive, here is a complete solution.
Even though Windows recognizes and displays the USB hard drive in the installation screen, it doesn’t allow you install Windows on the same. So, if you want to install Windows 7 on an external hard drive you need to follow the steps given below.
The procedure is simple but you need to install Windows Automated Installation Kit first to get some files. We would like to thank fujianabc @ boot-land forum for this workaround.
Requirements:
# An external hard drive formatted with NTFS
# Windows 7 installation files (if you have Windows 7 ISO use Virtual Clone Drive freeware to mount it)
# Windows Automated Installation Kit (free download from Microsoft)
NOTE: Make sure that you have a minimum of 15 GB free space on your external hard drive before starting the procedure. Although we are not going to delete the contents of external hard drive, we recommend backing up your external hard drive contents before trying this guide.
Procedure:
1. Create two folders named Windows Files and WAIK Files on your desktop or any other drive which has a minimum of 5 GB free space.
2. Download the ZIP file from here and extract the contents to WAIK Files folder. Before starting the actual installation procedure, you need to have three files: Bcdboot.exe, Bootsect.exe and Imgex.exe. These files can only be obtained by installing Windows Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7 on your Windows PC. After installing WAIK, simply search for these files in the Windows installation drive to get them. Once you have these three files, copy them to WAIK Files folder that you have created in the above step.
3. Copy all the contents of Windows 7 installation DVD to the Windows Files folder.
4. The next step is to run Installer.cmd file as Administrator (Right-click on installer.cmd and select run as administrator). In the first screen, you will be asked to press Enter to continue.
5. Press Enter key to browse to the install.wim file present in the Windows Files folder. The Install.wim file can be found under Sources folder (Windows Files/ Sources/ install.wim).
6. Now, you need to select the Windows 7 edition that you want to install on external hard drive. You can select the edition by entering the index number shown in the screen. For example, type “5″ (without quote) and hit Enter key to select Ultimate edition.
7. The next step is to enter your External drive’s drive letter. Enter the drive letter (ex: L) and press Enter key.
8. Now, type in the drive letter of your ACTIVE partition and hit Enter key. Generally “C” is the active partition. You can find the active partition by opening Windows Disk Management tool (type diskmgmt.msc in Start menu search area and hit enter to launch it).
9. Finally, the installer will ask you the drive letter that you have entered to install Windows 7 is a USB hard drive or not. As you are installing Windows 7 to an external hard drive simply type “Y” without quote and press Enter key.
Finally click Enter key again to start extracting the Install.wim files. This might take a few minutes. Once done, you will be asked to reboot your PC to continue the normal Windows 7 installation procedure.
10. Reboot your PC and follow the usual Windows 7 installation procedure to complete Windows 7 installation on external hard drive. Your PC will be restarted twice or thrice during installation.
Please note that the installation procedure might be slower as you are installing Windows 7 to an external hard drive.
11. Once done with the installation, you are good to go. You can install all drivers and other software to start using the best Windows version on your PC.
Note: We have tested this method to install x86 flavor of Windows 7 to Seagate USB external hard drive. But should work fine with x64 as well. Users who would like to carry Windows 7 on a USB flash drive can follow our how to carry Windows 7 on USB flash drive guide.
Tags: Windows 7
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154 Comments
Thank you! All work correctly, but pagefile.sys removes on start… How to made it always stay in system disk?
Sorry for my English. I’m Russian =)
P.S. You made one error in guide. Nor imgex.exe -> imagex.exe
Can u please elaborate points 9 & 10 and what do u mean by normal windows installation (booting from DVD or external HDD)?
diskmod tool 0.022 pagefile on usb hdd
Forget to say “THANKS”. I make my laptop running with failure on IDE controller – HDD and CD dont work. Boot from live USB XP and my USB HDD is C: active partition and partition which I install Win 7…
Thanxxxxxxxx…..
Great work i just made all that in 30 min after i read this method everything is working so fine , just one question pleas , how can i make it to boot from external hard disk instead of taking the order from the original windows to boot
I have met a problem, I have insatlled the operatoin system followed by your procdure, it went well, but when system restarted, the blue screen is appeared, In the safe model, the problem is occured in when loading disk.sys, how can I handle it?
Hi thanks for putting up the method.
All works fine till step No:9 but then it does not restart automatically and if I restart the system it shows up with blue screen. I have also tried to repair by putting the windows cd.. but everything fails at this point. If you have any suggestions please let me know thanks bye.
I have blue window too. Win7 x64, ADATA 500 GB
I tryed the first method described by John Patrick Halili
it said that windows cannot be installed on this machine. I have a 500gb seagate external hard drive and am installing the x86 flavor of Windows 7. However, I have partioned the hdd and hope to duel boot with mac osx and windows. I already have mac osx installed and when I boot up from the external hard drive, it gives me the option to duel boot. will I have to ntfs format the entire drive to get windows 7 on it?
I tried to install windows 7 another time on my 500gb seagate external hard drive with 2 partitions. This time, I tried the method sucessfully booted to my external hard drive but it then gave me the error that it cannot install to computer from the setup screen.
I am trying another method in which in the last step I set the drive letter of the OS partition to the letter of the external hard drive.
this works and allows me to boot from my external hard drive. however, when I boot from the external hard drive, it says that windows 7 cannot install to the computer because it cannot configure it.
Can anyone upload a video showing me how to do it??
When i try to download Zip file from 2nd point as specified above, the download links is not working. Will you please update the working link?
The link to the Zip file (mentioned in point nr 2) does not work anymore. Could you please update the link? Many Thanks!
Where do you find the “Installer.cmd” file ??
hello
I want to install windows 7 on my external hard drive.
I found your site by google and tried it.
The problem i have is the following:
– when i click on here ( for downloaden the zip file)
(step 2)
the link doesn’t work. Where can i find the zip ??
or where can i find the files that i need to put in the waik folder on the external hard drive ??
If it’ easier for you, you can send them to my e-mail adres.
thanx
The required ZIP in the step 2 can be downloaded from here.
http://reboot.pro/10126/
Thanks for the guide
Now I have installed it succesfully, thanks Payton
But I still can’t install Windows 7 on my external… :S
I did step 1-9, but when I try step 10 still the same fault is showing up. (I want to install W7 Home Premium x86)
Someone knows how to fix this? :S
Thnx darkii
Hey, beautiful tutorial.
I’ve got a copy of XP. Would this be compatible with the Installer? Thanks.
Hey, I really wanna try this out but do to my sucky computer it would take forever to download and install “Windows Automated Installation Kit”. Would someone be willing to zip the (Bcdboot.exe, Bootsect.exe and Imgex.exe) files needed for this. If you would, u can either post a download link here or if thats not allowed send it to my email (blazingblaque@yahoo.com) Thanks
its simplier to install win 7 to internal and than make from it external by using eSATAp cable … its supported only in PCs and NBs with eSATA port … Win 7 doesnt install on external hdd over USB … but if you install it on internel and than make from it external win 7 will boot but it ends by BSOD … eSATAp is right solution ! TkTz
Hey tktz, I got a new harddrive for christmas for this purpose and could really use the assistance. If you or anyone else could help me out it would be great. I check it often.
I have a netbook with a bad hard drive. Is it possible to do all the setup on my desktop then plus the usb hdd into my netbook for installation?
Not sure what I am doing wrong. Everything installs fine and it says 100% complete but when I reboot the computer I attempt to boot from my USB hard drive and it says kernel is missing. Can anyone help me?
thanks for the advice, but when i reboot my laptop, to reboot it to my usb hdd external, it cant install windows 7. when i install win 7 on my usb hdd external, its say cant install win 7 on this disk, plz help me. am waiting 4 an answer.
thanks
hello… This is a great post.. but nobody is answering to the questions… Mr´. IntoWindows don´t let it die… This is one of a kind into the whole web…
i,ve done step 1-9..and it was smooth..
but in step 10 when it reach “Install Windows” with all the partition and stuff, it says “Windows cannot be installed to this disk. Setup does not support configuration of or installation to disks connected through a USB or IEEE 1394 port”
Can anyone help me.. i did all the steps.. that went fine then i tried booting from usb.. it starts to load windows and then i get blue screen.. any help ??
Hello,
Nice tut, but I get an error.
My system can’t find winload.exe.
I have tried several times, but it won’t boot up from the external hdd.
What to do?
The link to rar file wont work just brings me to reboot forums
install.wim is a invalid win32-program
@viresh75 I have the same error
0Xc000000F
winload.exe erroe
help needed
help will be appreciated
sebbe: http://reboot.pro/10126/ (thanks to Payton above you)
janson: you’re not doing something right or you need to try again
I’m also having issues with winload.exe. I tried changing the directory to sys32\boot\winload.exe, which doesn’t work. I doubt copy-paste-replacing winload.exe’s will work. I tried both drive letters for the boot partition. I’m suspicious that something else is wrong. It may be my GRUB bootloader, but who knows.
I’m kind of confused as to how we’re supposed to follow the standard installation process if it can’t install to ext hd. Also, doesn’t the AIK install to the hard drive already?
Hey thanks for the tip. I ran into some issues installing Windows 7 a USB drive. I followed the steps above, but i was getting the error that “BOOTMGR is missing”. So i booted to the pre-installed windows installation and in diskmanager, i rightclicked on the C: drive of the usb disk, and selected “Mark as Active”. Then, I followed this link:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/fixing-bootmgr-is-missing-error-while-trying-to-boot-windows-vista/
and the installation continued and completed sucessfully.
Hi. The procedure goes on until 87%. The installation stops. Is my HDD faulty or what?
seems very interesting only to point on issue 2 isn’t clear to me. You have to download a zip file but I cannot locate which one as it shows several with the link.
Which file needs to be downloaded?
Which files are in the packed file.
Thanks
@ deschepper jan
Payton wrote
“The required ZIP in the step 2 can be downloaded from here.
http://reboot.pro/10126/”
the zip works
@ Strider
Download links updated with your new link. Thanks for the same.
Hello! I don’t know if this is the place where I should write to.
I can’t install any version of windows on my laptop, because it seems that the CD-DVD drive does’n read the cd(s) to the and, and it gives me errors.
My question is: how can I preinstall the windows to the hdd (from another pc) an then, when I power on my laptop, to start the instalation process directly from my hdd. The Bios doesn’t give me the possibility to boot from LAN or USB, only HDD and CD-DVD.
Thank you!
hi.. all you step is correct for me but when i start the computer and set in bios to my external hdd computer said BOOTMGR is missing, what is problem?
If I do all the above instruction in my pc and then, I use the installed window7(in external hard disk) in my laptop, will it works??
Thanks by the way.
Question: After installing Windows AIK, I searched for the files, and there are two or three of each one. Do we need the ones in the x86 folder, amd64, or ia64?
Nevermind, I’m stupid.
The installer has been on “[ 98% ] Applying progress” for over half an hour now… Is that normal?
Could I just reboot from here…? :/
Hi,
Many thanks for your guide, it’s very clear and good to follow. I am trying to use your guide to install windows 7 on a samsungG3 external usb hdd. The problem is that when i get to the point of restarting to start the installation my laptop just restarts windows from the internal disk and gives me code 5 error when I try to boot from dvd in the bios. I am using an .iso bootable image as I don’t have the originals , could that be the isue perhaps? I hope you can inform me,many thanks,sarah
Hello i followed all your steps clearly until the final part.. An error occured wen loading the registry. press any key to exit
Also i wish to have a reply soon if i may.
Sorry for my english.
Thank you for your tutorial. Is very intsresting.
I use a 32GB USB Flash Drive.
Your procedure works with an USB Flash Drive?
I’m following your steps 1 to 9,
When I reboot my system, nothing occurre, I run a W7 Setup and my flash drive not shown in disk list.
Thanks.
In the procedure described by fujianabc not to do anything after running Install.cmd.
It is assumed that after the process, Windows 7 is already nstalled on the USB disk. I reboot my computer and is impossible to start from my USB Hard Drive, simply, it is ignored.
When I try to continue with the normal installation, it displays the same message thet does not let me install on a USB Hard Drive.
Does this really work?. What to do to start the computer with the USB hard drive?
Thank you very much.
Hello,
It worked with someone? I read all of cometary and not met anyone who said it worked. And the author does not answer any questions. I think it does not work or we’re all doing something wrong.
It is important to the author comment on whether it really works or not and help visitors.
Unfortunately I have not found anywhere else on the internet running Windows 7 by an external hd.
If anyone knows, please here.
Step 2 files: http://reboot.pro/10126/
Hi i install win 7 64 bit on my 1 tb ext hdd, everything is working great but only 1 little problem. I have to choose everytime i boot which win 7 i want to load (ie 1 on my int hdd and 1 on my ext hdd)
How can i set my pc to boot automatically from int hdd if my ext hdd is not plug in.
any idea what i can do???
tks
Hi. Is there any place where I can get the bcdboot.exe, bootsect.exe and imgex.exe files? My internet connection is so slow I can’t download a 1.66 gig iso file just for three files. Help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
After the setup is done and I reboot the pc nothing happens for one. It just loads my regular Windows 7 copy and when I select to boot from USB External Hard Drive it gives me an error saying “NTLDR is missing”. Please help me on fixing this problem I need this to boot from USB and work for my school work. THANKS IN ADVANCE!
I did it! It worked! =D
for people who could follow the advice and installed the system with 100%
Step 9 Activate the partition where you installed windows 7 DH in external
Opening the Windows Disk Management tool (type diskmgmt.msc Start menu search field and press Enter to launch it).
go on the partition where you installed windows 7 (eg L) as in step 7
now and click the right mouse button and then click => mark partition as active!
You must restart your system after this step!
Ok here is a small troubleshoot
First of all if you are installing to an external drive, I beleive the instructions are incorrect
say you have a local HD with windows xp on partition C: and then you have a USB drive with a letter X:
The you should then enter X: and X: as your options for step 7 and 8 and then enter Y for external hdd
A) If you are successfully booting and the windows starts the installation, but then crashes with a blue screen of death (BSOD) – try going into BIOS and looking for SATA settings and changing to “compatibility” or disable sata or something similar
B) if you are restarting but your computer boots into the wrong thing – e.g. your regular windows XP or what have you, you need to go to your BIOS settings and reconfigure your start order
D) you are booting, but then you get a blank cursor, or some message about not finding boot files, etc. This is a bit trickier. What I had to do was this
insert the windows 7 installation CD
Select the “recover” option
If a prompt comes up to automatically fix the problem – you are on the right track, but CANCEL the prompt
choose the Command Prompt
you will get a command prompt that will read X:\sources\
type
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
if it asks for a partition, enter the drive letter of your external drive (it may change it on you)
As a first step to any boot problems, you may also try setting the USB partition as active. TO do this, right click my computer>manage>storage>disk management> right click on the partition where you are trying to install the win 7 files and set active
Hope this helps someone
Thanks! The instructions worked out great. Theres a typo on the filename imagen.exe (from WAIK).
My only issue is everytime I boot this os (which I sysprepped to use on my ultraportable) the “performance options” menu opens and the virtual memory settings I set & apply never persist.
I’ve tried:
sc config afs start= disabled
(I don’t even have afs service running)
&
sfc /scannow
(no errors found)
&
reg add “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management” /v DisablePagingExecutive /t REG_DWORD /d 1
&
clearpagefileatshutdown is even set to 0
I’m stuck, only thing else I can imagine is an upgrade install, which, due to the nature of this original install (to ext usb) I fear will ruin the install.
great tutorial works great! awesome
In an effort to install Win8 on an external with Win7 on my internal I followed instructions and everything appears to have installed properly. When I reboot though the normal Win7 appears and cannot figure how to get Win8 started to get a glimpse of what it is about. Any suggestions or clues? Thanx.
Vincent,
Did you try setting the boot order to USB first? (assuming it’s a USB external you are using) I’m just guessing here. Also, I’m trying to install Windows 8 Developer Preview on an external also, but I get stuck at the “Preparing” Screen and the spinning circles. Seems like my external’s not doing anything either so I guess the install got stuck. What did you do exactly? I couldn’t find the bcdboot.exe or imagex.exe from the Win8 ISO so I used the one from Win7. Any info would help me…thanks!
@Vincent @Ray, were you guys able to sort out the windows 8 install issue? I’m thinking of installing it on an ext hdd as well but I want to know if it’s even possible.
I’ve tried installing Win8 using this method and ended up with 0xc000000f error (“/windows/system32/winload.exe file is missing or corrupted”) during booting the windows.
Then I’ve tried another method from reboot.pro forum: installed Win8 on virtual machine, run an usbbootfix script found on the forum and cloned the content from the disk on external hdd. While bcdedit.exe, when run from the external hdd, lists Windows 8 on the boot list, booting from the usb hdd ends up with a black screen and white blinking cursor. :/
Anyone succeeded in booting Windows 8 from USB drive?
@Mr_Zombie yeah i have booted from a 8gb USB. there are a whooole bunch of guides on it already. just search it. i havent been able to do this guide though… because i dont have windows 7 files
Read *do* Read *Do *read* do…
ALMOST DONE!!!
*read…….* WTF? I NEED THE C DRIVE TO BOOT FROM THIS? well that’s pretty lame and useless. I want a portable OS and not the lame one booting from Virtual box. I can install Grub and Ubuntu to this external drive, why does Microsoft have their heads up their asses?
Please, at step 6 the Install.wim program seem not to read imagex file, because, it is not showing images files to select the ultimate version.
What is happening?
Hi!
When I made my USB drive ‘active’ with dikspart.exe, I can type the USB drive’s letter at the active drive question?
So, with this, it will boot from USB drive?
(Sorry for my bad english, I’m hungarian
)
Sorry, diskpart.exe
I must be doing something wrong here. I’ve tried this with like 3 different windows discs and each one either gives me a BSOD during “windows is installing devices” or freezes at that time without a BSOD, at various different times. Tried disabling SATA controllers in BIOS, didn’t help. First, can someone clarify: which folders do we get the Bcdboot.exe, Bootsect.exe and Imagex.exe files from? There’s 2-3 of each. Google seemed to say use amd64 for all 64 bit, and x86 for all 32 bit, but I can’t be sure. Maybe that’s my problem. I’m a very experienced computer user, so the fact that this won’t work for me is frustrating. Any ideas?
Hello There,
Excellent tutorial. I had it working though it cost me a while. I had a recurrent blue screen as mentioned in many of the posts. I thoght the exteranl disk was properly flagged as active and bootable and it was not, i was using a diskless pc with a bootable hirens cd usb key (mini windowxp, diskpart, and diskgenius). What it worked for me was using a linux tool, gparted, and flag the partition as bootable. I have to mention that the 3 files required from waik can be obtained from a winpe cdrom once the computer is booted. The catch is that to make a winpe you need the waik … If anybody needs tehm files I might be able to upload to megaupload or similar.
Regards
is there a way to set the swap file? i did followed the tutorial for my wife’s computer. windows boots up file, but all of the ram is used up making the machine lockup easily. she has 2GB ram. the reason i am using this system is that her onboard hd controller burned out.
I would really like to get this to work. I have a RAID system that is down on me, and I can’t do any rebuilds to the RAID without Windows running, well that’s the problem Windows won’t boot because my drives are in a ‘Degraded’ state. So I would like to get Windows running externally so I can try to rebuild the array instead of losing all my data. My data is still there cause I can see it when I load Windows XP in to the Recovery Console after the(F6) install.
So I preformed everything in the main How-To..After my first error “Error Loading Operating System” I rebooted and it actually started to finish the install, but once it rebooted again the “Error Loading Operating System” is back with the black screen and it stops there. This is the same error I was getting when I tried to directly load my original Windows XP straight to the USB drive. I’m stuck now. Does someone have any good advice that will help me?
Beautiful Program. I have been searching, searching and searching for a hack as wonderful as this. My system is quad-booting 3 types of Windows including this one I installed, using this method, on my 1TB external HD, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit. Does not laggggg at all! Just takes time to boot up, that’s it! Still installing programs as I have space (now).
Only ran into one problem, since I am a amateur computer specialist I came up with a fix in no time. I loaded the settings and did everything from the steps above. I rebooted and the system and “BOOTMGR IS MISSING” error prompt came up. All I had to do since I had Windows 32-Bit already installed, I used the boot entry editing software program, “Easy BCD”, and created a new boot entry directed to the Partition on the External Drive. Volia! Booted up perfectly
I keep getting the Blue Screen of Death when I go to load Windows 7 that I installed on my external hdd, according to these directions. happens as 7 is loading. what am i doing wrong?
Hallo. I am following the procedure but I am meeting two difficulties:
First: There are 3 files named Bcdboot.exe; 3 files named Bootsect.exe; and 2 files named Imgex.exe. Exactly which one of all these three do I need?
Second: I am reaching successfully step 9 but then nothing happens- no progress indicator, nothing…. Why so? Any suggestions?
Thank you!
Hey
im getting the same error message which i was getting earlier….
windows cannot be installed on this drive message….can anyone tell me what have i done wrong?i have followed the exact same procedure which has been given on top still im not able to install it on external harddrive….
Please help I keep getting an error at 93% that windows cannot copy all the files with the imagex.exe I don’t know what to do
Irun Installer.cmd file as Administrator but… didnot show aviable image file to give
Having a problem…. 0xc0000001 winload.exe is corrupted or something like that.. how to resolve..?
i doo all crefully….but whn i rstart my cmptr and boot frm external hdd….just a black screen come and nothng hppan…i bean waitng for an halft hour…bt f*ckd by ths problm….help me…
Hey Thanks Anyway for your work,but i can’t find imagex.exe, can some one help me please ?
when I start the Installer.cmd it asks me for the Install.wim but when I open the Install.wim it says tat this version of Installer is only for windows vista not for windows 7 that you are running. what can i do about this? Is there a Installer for computers that are running windows 7?
thank you
anyone have an idea
????
does this mean that it will format my c drive too
I would like to add, I have been trying MANY methods to try and install/run windows 7 on a External USB device. This worked up until I booted like normal, and it intsalled drivers,services,Windows 7 Ultimate..Then I got the bootloader error message..
However, all I did is reboot the system like normal and allowed the MAIN computer to allow so time to recognize the USB drive and it worked without a hitch. THANK YOU!!!!!! Man I have spent along time searching and you have been a Godsend!!
Sure it isnt Imagex.exe?
I can’t find Imagex.exe on my computer. After I installed WAIK I found Bcdboot.exe and Bootsect.exe.
Sorry for commenting this late. But I can confirm that this guide works 100%.
Once i get to step 4, it says that image.exe can not be found when it is clearly in the folder!! Very frustrating!!
HELP PLEASE!!
this one really helps, i followed it step by step, now i do have an external usb hdd on with win7 it. THANKS A LOT!!!
I am sorry but the procedure is wrong, the Windows can not be installed into an external Hard Drive!
When I Boot for Installation the external HDD always is not acceptable even if I followed exactly the procedure predescribed!
I tried all the steps and always get “BOOTMGR is missing. Press Ctrl+alt+del to restart” No matter what I try.
I am using WD250gb USB HDD attached to my Acer 5920G which has installed win7 on a spare internal hdd.
I even downloaded WAIK from microsoft (1.7gb) and took the original files again. Win7 ISO working fine, the installer.wim reports that bootmgr menu has been created, all fine and I need to restart. I spent over 8h today on it and not a single thing works…
I used win repair via the consol x to rebuild the BCD file (strangely, after the installer.wim finishes, no “x:/boot” folder is to be seen on the USB HDD partition, it is on the original internal C:\ hdd).
Manual add of this file and folder causes error “\Boot\BCD Status 0xc0000000f wrong boot configuration data” to appear.
Any advice, please?
This actually does work!
Ran into many errors tho. The EasyBCD is very important to make it boot from usb external hdd!. find guide on youtube for this!
Also, if getting blue screen, remember disabling SATA (choose IDE)
I am now running my laptop from usb external hdd with windows 7 ultimate!
Thanks stan
Worked for me…
i have problem with install and no boot my External hdd but i used recovery and command prompt and fixed with this command:
bootrec.exe/fixmbr
bootrec.exe/fixboot
bootrec.exe/rebuildbcd
…
Thanks again stan
for reading full solution you can read stan comment (this is above)
i have a problem. i run through all the steps. it loads up windows 7 just fine. but then two things happen: when i plug the usb into another laptop and boot from external HDD, i get “Operating System Not Found.” when i plug it back into the original, i get either “Operating System Not Found” (if using boot menu) or a blank screen (if starting from BIOS). i did the step to make the usb portable on the usb OS. what do?
for the people who made it to step 10 then u restart your pc to instal the win-7 what you do wrong is>> enter the bios and make the first boot the external HDD then let the pc start normally do not activate the cd let the pc boot from the external it will start make some registry changes and welcome to your new win-7 from your external hard.
PS: im not the post creator im just a guy who try it as you are and find responsibility to make Note about it i hope you enjoy it
from experience test it’s a bit slower than normal if you have a strong pc hardware specially the cash and ram capacity you will be more than fine.
okay. more problems. the external that windows 7 is installed on will only run if it is plugged into the same port every time. when i plug it into a different port on the same laptop, i get “registry failed to start.” what is going wrong here? it will work only in the laptop i installed it with, only in the same port i originally used. and apparently “loses” its OS when i try to use the external on another laptop, even when i plug it back into the same laptop. i have to reformat the drive and start from scratch every time.
Step 6 is not working for me. iam not getting any images and index numbers. Please Suggest me how to get index numbers as step 6.
FYI:Yes, you can install to a USB. Thanks to your site instructions, and a little work, I was able to install Windows 7 to a Patriot 16GB USB drive. It works just fine, except it’s a little slow, which is to be expected.
Hi. when i restart the computer it says error starting system on usb.
what do i do
sry for myenglish
hi, i do this with windows 8 and working, i use windows7 ultimate x64 and i install win8 32bit to seagate expansion 320gb. imagex.exe[find in my friend pc,i think its for win vista] bcdboot.exe[find in win7 drive C: ] bootsect.exe[find in win7 enterprise dvd] in step 10 i restart my laptop and after rebooting its boot to win 7 i restart again and boot win8 and do install progress until chose partition and close setup, rebooting system and boot from my hdd, win8 coming and so nice
i play pinball in win8 and its amazing. i shout down win8 and disconnect my hdd, turn o my laptop and see blue screen say need usb or disk, i put win7 disk and boot this and use system recover, automatic find problem and fix, rebooting and boot to my win7 but now my microsoft essential security say windows did not pass genune validation, and see under screen in my background this copy of windows is not genuine. this is good have OS on portable hdd but lost your win on internal hdd, its should have a boot menu to chose..
tnx
sry in line 4-5 [boot from win8 dvd and do install pro..]
Can some one make WORKING video tutorial by followin all steps from here ? Thanks
THIS WAS AWESOME. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I have a laptop that has a password protected BIOS. I wanted to format and install windows 7 from USB however with the BIOS locked i couldn’t boot from my USB without taking apart the entire laptop to get to the battery to reset it. After reading this i simply removed the HD from my laptop and used an adapter that made it USB accessible (USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE). Followed the directions and when time came to reboot i just removed the HD and put it back into the laptop and started it up. LOW AND BEHOLD it booted right into installation and now everything works fine. THANKS AGAIN FOR THIS TUTORIAL!
after completion of all above steps getting below error when booting on USB SEAGATE GO FLEX HDD
A Disk Read Error Occurred
Press CLT + ALT + DEL to restart
can n e 1 help me out this….
I have installed windows 7 on my pc from USB by usings the steps that you have mentioned above.
My usb drive letter was F:
So I chose:
driveletter os-partition F:
driveletter bootpartiotion F:
usbdisk: yes
last question I didin’t make a change
This installation is perfectly working on my dektop
But is not working on my laptop
I started with testing on my laptop (BSOD)
Then I plugged it in my desktop and all went well.
I still can’t use it on my laptop
any suggestions?
this link not working.
http://reboot.pro/10126/page__view__findpost__p__88282
the link for the WAIK Files is not working, same link as in comment #109
Does anybody have the files from Step 1? Link is broken.
For people reporting broken link to ZIP file from step 2:
1. Google for “Windows Vista/2008/7/2008 R2 Fast Installer” or for “NT6.X_fast_installer_100219.7z”
OR
2. Try one of the following links:
http://reboot.pro/10126/#entry88282
http://reboot.pro/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_id=10559
———————————————————
For people reporting broken downloads of Windows Automated Installation Kit:
the correct md5 of KB3AIK_EN.iso is 1e73b24a89eceab9d50585b92db5482f.
Regards,
R?mak???a
I can’t find Imagex.exe on my computer. After I installed WAIK I found Bcdboot.exe and Bootsect.exe but Imagex.exe could not be found. PLS HELP
This method works as described.
I have installed Win7 Pro and Ultimate a couple of times according to the original instructions (1.) .
It worked perfectly. The problem is that installing some applications, windows updates or even uninstalling applications will cause BCOD or failure to boot. I cannot figure out how to fix these problems.
So I reinstall Win7…..???????!!!!!!!
I meant BSOD
Nice article !
The link to downloading the files into the “WAIK Files” folder doesn’t exist can you please re-upload the zip and repair the link please? Can always email me the zip file if you can. Thanks!
I have install Win7 according to your instruction on an ASUS MB, HP Notebook, LG Notebook. I was able to install it on my Fujitsu netbook, only if I set the SATA to IDE mode. Is there a way to slip in the AMD SATA Controller? Your approach bypass the F6 in phase I of Windows 7 installation, where one could load the special storage drivers. Please help, I tried injecting the drivers into the BOOT.WIM and INSTALL.WIM, but always get the BSOD during step 2 of the Installation.
Can someone help me fix the corrupted boot sector of my
hard drive? I installed the win7 pro onto my WD hard drive with the helpb of this document but after a windows update I cannot boot it anymore.
Thanks
THE LINK DONT WORK!!! HEELP
Hey i completed every step and even booted it succeesfully on the laptop i did the steps with, but when i try it on other computers, it says “BOOTMGR is missing press ctrl+alt+del to restart…” anyone able to explain how i get around this?
It works with 64 bit windows also. runs a little slower than having an actual HDD but surprisingly fast for a portable HDD. just follow the steps and make sure everything is good.
You can also input this within the cmd window after restart and install so that you can run on any pc=
\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /loobe /generalize /shutdown
(make sure to put the spaces in exactly where I have placed them {between [sysprep.exe, /oobe, /generalize and /shutdown]})
Hi,
I have done this and all runs perfectly with the exception of the virtual memory as the paging size resets itself to 0 every time I restart my system, so anything that uses a lot of memory cannot run.
Any ideas on how to fix this problem?
The ZIP file link is broken. It links to http://reboot.pro/10126/page__view__findpost__p__88282 which does not exist
I Have Install win 7 32 Bit in may Ex HDD but this is the use only one computer, i will be connect another computer not working win 7 in External HDD,
please Give me Solution used in any computer in external HDD win 7 32 Bit.
How long dose it take to setup after you restart for some reason its taking varry long its setup is installing devices and its at 27% and its ben slowly moving so far maybe 4hrs or more like 20min for 1%
Thanks for this shit. I did everything, it rebooted and logged into windows normal and now my pc doesnt detect USB devices and there is no solution. Fuck you
I got this to work as well. Even on an older laptop with a Pentium M. It’s slow but works well!
when i try to select active partition it tells me that the partition is not writable, please help!
Hi, thanks a lot for the great walk-through. For anyone who is interested in getting WAIK Tools w/o loading the huge ISO’s, below is some information with a great little tool someone created. Hope this helps.
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/156869-get-waik-tools-wo-loading-the-huge-isos/
I’m trying to do this on a Mac, All works up until booting from the USB at which point I get the Blue screen of Death (BSOD). I saw some people mention disabling the SATA in the BIOS but the mac has no BIOS
has anyone figured out an alternative to this or is there a way to inject hacked drivers to the windows startup so that it can bypass the SATA controller?
Any help appreciated.
Everything worked great up to step 10, it finished and said hit any key to exit, did not ask to reboot to finish installation. When I rebooted myself and selected the external as the boot location, it simply loads the operating system on the computer, is there something else I am missing
bcdboot.exe and imag.exe can be obtained here:
http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/getwaiktools
bootsect.exe is in your windows installation files! after extracting the installation files from the iso as instructed, open the “boot” folder and you’ll see bootsect.exe. make a copy of it and put it in the waik folder and you’re ready to start!
I though I followed then instruction 100% but when I try to boot up from USB, then LP boots up like normal, just a bit slower!? Any idea?
Was pulling my hair out until I saw the .jpg in step 2 over “imgex” not being “imagex”. Please correct this!
Link could use updating for AIK also. The one you gave leads to Vista installation. The files might still work, but the Windows 7 AIK iso is a little over half a gig larger.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5753
hi there every thing went really smooth until this error showed_up “error occurred when loading the registry ” then “press anykey to exit” . any ideas
Hello, i successfully installed my windows 7 to external Western Digital 500 gb. but when i boot from my Sony Vaio, it says “no: grldr”. so i troubleshoot it using my PC, the PC boots from the external HD but then works fine.. how to fix the problem when i boot my external HDD to the laptop? please help..
i managed to make a solution with the no grldr problem. now i facing with the Blue Screen! after it boots and loads windows 7 logo it hang up and blue screen shows. i read that some solutions is to disable SATA from bios, but when i check my bios, i did not found any SATA configuration. help please
HELP HELP HELPP HELPP ….
HELP
HELP
HELPP… HELP….
ALL WENT WELL BUT AFTER ALL PROCEDURE NOW AS I M TRYING TO BOOT IT IS. SHOWING A WINDOWS LOGO AND THEN BLUE SCREEN (BSOD) ..
I HAVE INTEL MOTHERBOARD….
I READ COMENTS ABOUT DISABLING SATA…
BUT THERE IS NO SATA.. IN BIOS SETTING..
HELP NEEDED…
I PURCHASED NEW EXTERNAL HARDDISK TO USE IT LIKE INTERNAL..BCOZ MY INTERNAL HDD IS TOTALLY DAMMAGED
HELP ME
my computer does not restart and when i restart my computer with the USB all i get when it is starting windows is a blue screen witch say that there is a error
Congratulations, I use this procedure and all is ok… thank you for that help about “How To Install Windows 7 To USB External Hard Drive [Must Read]” Felicitaciones por este procedimiento para instalar Windows 7 en disco duro externo. Todo muy bien. Gracias por todo.
May I add: you may have to use the imagex.exe file from a different architecture than you would think: I am going thru this procedure for a Thinkpad with Intel core i5– and it only worked with the imagex.exe file from the “AMD” folder in the waik files.
This ruined my OS. I got to step ten just fine (hadn’t installed windows 7 yet) rebooted after the WAIK green screen part then when my PC tried to boot up my standard OS, it fails. It thinks its trying to boot windows 7 and gets confused and restarts again and again. I checked the boot sequence in the BIOS to make sure its not trying to boot from the external and even unplugged the external. I can’t even get into safe mode or anything.
I went through all the steps but he installation doesn’t start after the reboot. When I start the installation from either the Windows Files folder or a DVD it still says that I can’t install on a USB drive.
I’m using a hard drive in an external enclosure that has it’s own C drive as it’s boot drive. As my external drive it is the F: drive. My only thought was that in step 8 it is asking for the Active partition. I chose the F: drive. My concern was that if I chose C: (the active and boot partition for my laptop) that it would compromise my laptop. Thoughts/ideas?
Hi , thnx for info, but I have a question. If I want to boot from usb external hdd. for example if I don’t want to use my hdd in laptop at all. I need just create for example, small active partition on usb hdd , and primary. And in step when we choosing letters use them?
I followed all the steps, but when i run the windows intaller, it still says me that windows cannot be installed in am usb :S, after i do the first boot nothing happened, i dont know what to do.
where is the zip files to be inserted to the WAIK folder? cant find it in the link given..
(
this is not working. don’t tell me nothing. I went through the steps. Don’t know where it partioned but not on my external hardrive. rebooted and tried to install and same dam error shown from the beginning of step 1. this is stupid. WILL NOT LET ME INSTALL WINDOWS TO MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE…
Well, thanks for the suggestions.
This procedure enabled me to rescue a hard disk that was not booting. It was necessary to boot my broken PC from an external USB hard disk previously prepared from another computer. I want to clarify general aspects and some variations that were necessary in my case in order to make everything work fine.
First: The files needed to copy into the “WAIK Files” folder can be found from various sites in the Internet under the name of “NT6.X_fast_installer”
Second: The software: Automated Installation Kit (AIT) must be downloaded from the Microsoft web site, as it comes in ISO format it is necessary to burn it into a DVD in order to install it later.
Third: In my case, after I ran the “installer.cmd” file and I finished up loading Windows 7 in my external hard disk, it did not boot and I could not continue with the Windows installation. I repeated this process several times without having success.
SOLUTION: Make a quick format to the external USB hard disk and then use on of the multiple procedures found on YouTube to make a boot from an external USB memory. Apply it to the external USB hard disk, I used a simple software called “WiNToBootic.exe” that left my external hard disk booting perfectly. After this, go into the external hard disk and erase all the files copied, the only files left are the hidden boot ones. Then, continue normally with the process of running the “installer.cmd” file as an administrator and all the other steps described in this blog.
In the end, when the boot from the external usb hard disk is required to finish the windows installation, unplug the disk and connect it to the PC in which you wish to recover your lost information. The external disk will boot up normally to finish the windows installation, then go to the broken disk to rescue your lost information.
Thanks for all you comments and I hope it works for you.
Access denied failures when writing image? Turn off your antivirus.
Hi i did everything and it was ok, but when i try to boot it on the other laptop it say windows operating system couldn’t be found something like that , how can i fix this? i’m using 32gb flash disk, because my internal hard disk is having a problem and i can yet afford to buy new Hard disk, thats why i want to use my 32 gb flash drive for the mean time.
Thanks for all this help, I just made it and works fine.
The only one problem I’m having is when trying to install .Net framework 4 or Sql Server (tools that I’ll need in my image), it is just crashing and don’t know why… Do you have any idea that could help me with this?? I’ll really appreciate that!
Thanks in advance.