Question from a user
Hello.
I have a 1500 GB external USB hard drive that is about half full. Is it possible to make it bootable for installing Windows 10 without formatting or deleting data from it?
Hello.
If you do everything carefully, then yes, the data on it will not be lost and you will be able to install the OS from it.
Below in the article I will show how this can be done using the example of one of my own disks (used to store various software). Please note that if you do some actions differently than shown in my example, you may lose data on the HDD...
STEP 1: connection...
And so, turn on your laptop (PC) and connect your external HDD to a USB port (preferably USB 3.0 - then all operations will go much faster). I also cannot help but recommend disconnecting all other disks and flash drives from the computer’s USB ports (this will help avoid various recording errors...).
STEP 2: create a new Windows partition
Next we need to run disk management(click Win+R, and enter the command diskmgmt.msc into the open line, see screenshot below). This software is built into all latest Windows XP, 7, 8, 10 operating systems.
In Disk Management you should see all drives connected to your computer. We need to find the external drive that we connected to the USB port.
Next, select one of the partitions on this external HDD ( approx. : in most cases, there is one partition on an external drive - and there is nothing to choose from...), right-click on it and select the function compress volume(the bottom line: we will “take” some space from this partition and create a new partition for Windows, where we will write the boot data).
Then, in the settings, specify the size of the new partition (I recommend choosing a figure of 20-30 GB).
Then you will see that a new unmarked black area has appeared on the disk (there is nothing on it yet). Right-click on it and create a simple volume.
Next, specify the FAT 32 file system, set the volume label (can be any) and format the partition ( Important! Only this newly created partition is formatted, not the entire disk. Therefore, all data on other partitions of this disk will be intact).
STEP 3: make this section active
Now we need not to forget about one very important thing - to make our new section active. Active partitions are used to host the OS bootloader (if this is not done, then you will almost certainly not be able to boot from it).
By the way, only one partition on one physical hard drive can be active. If you have several hard drives, then each of them can contain only one active chapter.
And so, the easiest way to do this is to simply right-click on the desired partition in disk management and select the function. But, unfortunately, this function often glows gray and is not available...
Alternative option
First you need to run Command Prompt as an administrator. To do this, simply open the task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), create a new task through the file menu, and use the command CMD(example below).
- diskpart ;
- list disk (you will see a list of connected physical disks);
- select disk 3 (instead of 3, indicate your disk number on which you created the new partition);
- list partition (view all partitions on the selected disk);
- select partition 3 (instead of 3, enter your partition number (the one you created step earlier)).
Now that we have selected the drive and partition - just use the command active(if everything went well, a message will appear that this section has been marked as active).
By the way, if you go to “My Computer” you will see a clean new disk (example below).
STEP 4: write to Windows 10 OS partition
To get started, we need an ISO image with Windows 10. If you don’t have one, you can create it using the following instructions:
Now let's talk about how to properly burn bootable media.
Option 1
Just copy all the files from the ISO image to our new partition. This can be done using a regular archiver, like 7Z (the best archivers: ).
Although the method is convenient, I personally still resort to special ones. utilities (more on this in option 2).
Option 2
Use the program WinSetupFromUSB(more details about it: ). Please note that you need a version no lower than 1.9 (I will show my example in it).
You need to run this utility as an administrator (to do this, simply right-click on the executable file and select it, see example below).
- first you need to click on opening the advanced options window (see arrow-1, Advanced options);
- enable display of drives connected to USB (see arrow-2);
- select the section we are specializing in. prepared in the previous steps (guide by size);
- specify an ISO image of a file with Windows 10 OS;
- start recording.
Please note that the program should warn you that you have selected an external drive and it is too large. Just agree.
(Important! There should be no warnings about formatting the disk! Just look at the message, it doesn't contain the words format or erase, delete...).
After ~10 minutes, if everything went well, you will see a message that the job is done. So the disk is ready!
STEP 5: Check operation
Basically, if you did everything exactly step by step as shown above, then when you boot your laptop (PC), you only need to enter Boot Menu(boot menu), select an external HDD and begin installing Windows 10 (see example below).
If your disk is not displayed in the boot menu, first of all you need to go to the BIOS settings and check whether the ability to boot from USB devices is enabled (the USB Boot parameter should be set to Enabled, see the example below). Typically, this setting can be found in the BOOT or System Configuration sections.
Note: the instructions are relevant for relatively new computers (laptops) that support UEFI.
That's all for now, additions on the topic would be helpful...
Break a leg!
How to install Windows 7 from a SATA HDD, or creating an installation hard drive connected via Serial ATA.
This article describes how to create an installation HDD, or SDD, from which you can subsequently perform a so-called “clean” (with disk formatting) installation of Windows 7.
Windows XP x86 SP3 was used as the preinstalled operating system. In a similar way, you can create an installation HDD from newer versions of Windows (I have not tested this). And the installed OS was Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1.
Numerous installation methods from HDD described on the Internet usually use a USB flash drive or USB HDD for this purpose, but we will take a different route, because we didn’t have anything like that at hand. And in general, why not install the system by connecting the installation HDD via faster Serial ATA?
How did I get to this life? After purchasing a new SSD, on which Windows 7 x64 SP1, previously downloaded from the Internet, was supposed to be installed, it turned out that there was no flash drive, no DVD drive, or even a USB HDD at hand. 32-bit Windows XP was installed on the computer, and everything indicated that I was in for a boring and time-consuming installation of Windows 7 over the network. However, in the days of Windows 95, a clean installation of the OS from a HDD was commonplace, and I decided to check if everything had changed during this time?
creating a bootable HDD;
copying Windows 7 distribution files to it;
using the installation HDD for its intended purpose, for installing the OS;
disabling the installation HDD.
C:\>dir /a // view the contents of the current directory;
C:\>cd c:/WINDOWS // directory navigation;
C:\WINDOWS>cd \ // go to the root of drive C:
C:\>d: // transition from drive C: to drive D:
So the line
X:\Sources>bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr
means that the command bootsect was executed while in the X:\Sources> directory
1. Create a bootable HDD disk.
1.1. Partitioning and formatting the disk
It is not necessary to use the entire disk for this. It is enough to allocate a separate partition of about 4 gigabytes on it for this purpose.
Open Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
In Storage -> Disk Management, select the disk from which we want to create the installation HDD. You can split it into two sections. The first one is for installation. It is very useful to call him right away. For example, superHDD and assign a letter to it. The other is for Windows distributions, which can then be copied to the installation section, depending on which version of Windows needs to be installed.
We format the partition for installation in NTFS format and mark it as active. Thus, after completing this procedure, our installation HDD partition should have the Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) label in Disk Management.
1.2. Alternative way
An alternative way to create a bootable disk is to use the DiskPart command, a tool for managing disks, partitions, or volumes using scripts or commands entered from the command line.
Open the Window console (cmd.exe) and type there diskpart
advertising
DISKPART>
list disk // View the list of disks, find the one you need.
select disk // Select the disk to format.
clean
create partition primary
list partition
select partition 1
active // Mark the section as active.
assign letter=s // Assign a letter to the drive. I have S.
exit
In Windows XP, diskpart does not yet have a format command. , we use to format the disk in NTFS format, for example, c:\windows\system32\format.com.
Format s: /fs:ntfs
1.3. Updating the main partition boot code
Once the disk is formatted and its partition is marked as active, you need to update the partition's master boot code. At this stage, the first trouble awaits us. The bootsect program used for this from the Windows 7 x64 distribution cannot be executed in x86 with the message - is not a valid Win32 application. Therefore, I had to take it from the 32-bit version. It is located in .\boot\bootsect.exe
Links to these files were in the article
A bootable USB Flash or HDD drive is convenient because you can avoid using CD/DVD to install the OS and use diagnostic programs such as Memtest, MHDD, Acronis TI.
A “multi-boot” flash drive or HDD is good because you don’t have to format the entire disk for each program, but install all the necessary programs there once and, when booting from it, select the one you need through a beautiful menu. In the case of an HDD, it is convenient to create a separate small partition for this.
There are many solutions for flash drives (for example, http://eee-pc.ru/wiki/soft:usb_multiboot), but, as a rule, they do not work with USB HDD. On Habré I only found information about installing Win7 from a USB HDD, but a year ago attempts to reproduce this were unsuccessful. To install Windows 7 from a flash drive, there is MS Win7 DVD Tool, but again it does not work with HDD. So let's create our own multiboot USB HDD using GRUB4DOS.
We will need:
- USB HDD (everything described should also work for flash drives).
- Windows OS (of course, you can do this in the same way from a Linux-based OS, but I don’t currently have the opportunity to check the performance and the presence of pitfalls).
- Motherboard (BIOS) with support for booting from USB drives. If booting from USB is not supported, you can use Plop, more on that below.
UPD: automation of this method: rghost.ru/20467691 or greenflash.su/_fr/7/7487664.7z. The files from the archive (except for menu.lst and seven.iso) must be copied to the root of the section (or the paths in Menu.lst must be changed accordingly).
Possible problems and errors
Error 60: File for drive emulation must be in one contiguous disk area
Solution: You need to defragment the image. For example, using the Contig program from Mark Russinovich. Usage: contig.exe g:\ubuntu1.iso in the console.
BIOS does not support booting from USB, freezes, takes a long time to load and other problems associated with booting from a USB HDD
I hope this article helped you understand how to create a multiboot hard drive or flash drive.
There is a more detailed manual on GRUB4DOS (translation into Russian, sometimes crooked) or in README_GRUB4DOS from the archive with GRUB4DOS.
UPD1: will re-upload the script from method 2 Win7: I made a mistake and uploaded the old version, it had problems with x64.
UPD1.1: Added automated 3rd method for Win7.
Anyone who has at least once encountered installing the Microsoft Windows operating system knows that you can create a bootable DVD or bootable flash drive, the latter is often used due to its large bandwidth, which speeds up the installation of Windows.
But how to go further and create a bootable hard drive? And we'll talk about this below.
In fact, it has been possible to create bootable hard drives for a long time; the ability to install from them was available with images of the operating systems Windows 7, 8 and 10. After creating it and connecting it to a personal computer, the installation procedure will look the same as from a DVD disk or USB drive.
Let's do this step by step.
First step, this is connecting our hard drive to another computer on which the image we need is recorded and the operating system is already installed. Once connected, for proper operation, it is recommended to format it using Microsoft Windows, just as is done with a regular flash drive. Formatting is carried out in the NTFS file system.
Step two, after formatting is complete, we will use a small program called BOOTTICE, with which we will create a bootable hard drive (you need to run it as an administrator). In the program, go to the “Physical Disks” tab and select our disk from the drop-down list, then click “Process MBR”.
In the window that opens, we need to select the “GRUB4DOS” option and then click the “Install / Config” button at the bottom.
A window will open in front of us, where we need to successively press two buttons “Read from disk” and “Save to disk”, after completing the operation, click “OK”.
Step three, recording the operating system image to our created bootable hard drive. It is enough to take the desired image of Windows 7, 8 or 10 (.ISO file) and unpack it directly to our disk.
The fourth and final step is to connect our drive to a personal computer. In the BIOS we select to boot from our HDD, where after saving the settings we will begin installing the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Date: 12:06 06/01/2019
Yes... An experienced admin should have everything =) and a hard drive is not only a very large and capacious flash drive! Unlike a flash drive, you can make several partitions on it for different needs - for information, for garbage, and also make a boot partition...
The question is - why?
I personally needed it to install slax-linux there! What this gives is a familiar environment for working in any conditions, on any computer... but it happens that Linux is very often used to fix its poor brother - Windows... For example, remove files from a dead Windows, repartition the hard drive, change forgotten password in Windows, it is possible to manually find and remove malware or use Clam antivirus... You can also make a system image using dd...
Nowadays, external hard drives are quite capacious, and if there is data on it, it can be problematic to dump it somewhere so as not to lose it during formatting...
But this is not important, the important thing is that we only need 20-30 free gigabytes - a little for the system and not a lot for data and related software.
And so let's start creating a boot disk....
We will need an external hard drive, ideally empty, not ideally with data, it would be better if it has a 3.0 interface (even USB 2.0), it works much faster.
Also OS Windows XP or higher.
Free program for partitioning hard drives Wondershare Disk Manager Free (perverts can get by with Disk Manager in Windows)
In my case, this is Disk1 and it is not partitioned. In your case, there will be one partition, possibly NTFS, but as a rule the default is FAT32.
I'll have to create a couple of partitions:
I allocate sufficient space for the boot disk and click Next
And in order not to suffer in the distant future, I set the disk label - BOOT (not necessary) in the line below, Partition Type - select Primary. then, by analogy, I create a second partition with the NTFS type and a label, usually Data, only not Primary, but Logical.
Click Apply in the toolbar and agree. Our hard drive is repartitioned, as a rule - this is a matter of seconds.
If there is a disk with data and there is a lot of it and there is nowhere to make a backup... Then we take a risk - we change the size of the existing size:
Allocate enough free space:
And create a Primary partition with FAT32 and the BOOT label:
Click Apply again and wait... how long depends on the amount of data, since the data will be moved to the end of the disk from the freed up space. Once I allocated 30 gigabytes, it took about 5 hours.... So, be patient and pray that the electricity doesn’t run out!
Ideally, of course, make a backup of the data...
So, the disk is partitioned as it should, but you cannot boot from it yet. The Primary partition must be marked as active so that the computer’s Bios understands that it can boot from it:
We agree and click Apply and as a result, the disk becomes bootable.
If we want to install Windows from it, then simply copy the files from the Windows 7, 8, 8.1 installation disk to the root of the Boot disk and we can boot and install....
If we still need to install an OS for a thuja heap of various operations, then - =)
