install an OS from Ext. HD?

Hi everyone, I'm in a bit of a ditch here.

I have Vista 64 as an ISO, I can't burn it to any dvd's because I don't have any at the moment. The thing is, that it's on my HD. Now I was wondering, is it possible to boot into the HD from bootup and then locate the ISO and install from there.

Is there anyway to install an Operating System from an external source. I heard somewhere that you can install from a flash drive. If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

I think a google search for "install vista from flash drive" would be a good place to start. If a drive is flash RAM or a regular hard drive is irrelevant.

 

will a Vista ISO even fit on a flash drive?

 

@orev, I did a google search, but I'm only finding answers from macboys. I can't seem to find it regarding windows. I'll try again, thanks for the help.

 

Aslong as its USB, you will be able to boot into it. The problem is if its an .ISO it wont exactly see it as a bootable disc

 

Part of the process will be to extract the files from the ISO and then use the extracted files. You can't boot directly from an ISO image.

 

Orev, I'm having a problem, I created a 5GB FAT32 partition on the ext HD. I extracted the ISO to that partition. I edited the Boot Order to boot from USB hard drive first. But then it says "No operating system found"?

Any Idea what's happening. I have 160GB lying around. I'm gonna format the whole thing to FAT32 and extract the ISO to there. I'll see how it goes.

 

You may need to make the partition active on the external drive. I'm not really an expert on booting from external drives

 

Thanks anyway orev, I guess I'll just try and figure it out.

 

Why dont you just burn it into a dvd? dvd blanks dont really cost that much.

If you currently dont have an OS installed to burn one then maybe try a friends computer or a cyber cafe

You wont be able to boot straight off an .iso file. Your gonna need some sort of program that will mount the .iso file into a virtual cd/drive.

 

..........

 

Yes obviously i read that. Thats why i said dvd blanks dont cost that much

It will save him the hassles of booting through USB

 

@flipfire, did you read my comments? I said that I already extracted the file. I already have an OS installed. And I don't have any dvd's at the moment.

And THERE is a way to install from the HD. I just gotta figure a way to do it. But there definitely is a way.

Yes I have daemon tools to mount ISO's. but thats within the OS. you can't mount an ISO from the bootloader.

 

I said "DVDs arent that expensive" meaning buy some and save you the hassles of installing USB

Maybe theres a program that can mount an .iso image to a USB drive..who knows?

 

Nope, no such program to mount an ISO to the usb and boot from it. I would buy dvd's but I have an external HD, why not try it and see if it works. Btw orev, thanks a mill for telling me to try and make it the active partition because it worked. Well it worked up until it told me it cant find install.wim file. but I'm working on that now.

I would have never figured to make it the active partition.

@flipfire, it's not about the DVD's, it's about me trying to do something that I've never tried before. Imagine never having to burn an OS dvd because you can just put it on the ext HD. Its a lot safer then dvds. they are always getting scratched. it's good to have a backup though.

And the reason I CANT buy any right now, cause it's night time by me and I really wanted to do this tonight. I just borrowed a few DVD's from a friend of mine but now I'm determined to get this to work.

 

Well its up to you how you wanna do it. I was just trying to save you time & hassles

Good luck with the USB booting and let me know how it goes. Now that you have blanks you should be able to get it done tonight one way or the other

The traditional install cds does the job for me. I dont really do installs that often and i usually keep a backup of the cd's image into harddisk anyway

 

lol flipfire, I can feel your frustration. I would have the same things as well.


@Yitzter,
Just get a DVD+-R or DVD-RW and burn it to that. There are free CD/DVD burning software utilities out there (ImgBurn for example).

Booting from a USB drive or something similar is possible but terribly time-consuming and if something goes wrong, you'll have to start all over again.

If you don't have the ISO anymore, then just compile it back together using vLite or something.

 

Guys, I just want to see how it goes. First off, your right that I will have to start over if something goes wrong. Time consuming? I don't know. it took me 2 mins to copy the data over to my ext HD.

The thing is, it'll take at least half the time then from a CD. being that the read/write speed is much faster then dvd's. this is mainly an experiment to see how it goes. I'll let you know how it works out. Worst case, I'll burn it to a DVD.

 

are you guys retarded or something? the dude wants to learn how to boot from a HD. why is that so hard to understand?

time comsuming?
something can go wrong?

Are you kidding me?

 

Finding the way to do it is what he meant by "time consuming"

Have you seen this before Yitzer? Makes it sound easy. Apparently some motherboards like FAT16 instead of FAT32

EDIT: You might have been to those sites before but im not sure so i post it anyway.
http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/j...05/creating-a-bootable-winpe-2-0-usb-key.aspx

 

lol flipfire, your a pretty funny dude.

Ok first off. Yes I already read that a while ago. Most motherboards that are manufactured nowadays will read FAT32. Second the only thing that took time was to copy that data after I created a partition and formated it as FAT32.

The system DID boot into the ext HD, I changed the boot order in the bios to allow it to read the ext HD before the internal HD. Now the reason why it didn't work in the end, was because there was a currupt file. I don't how but that's what ended up happening. It went into the install (which took 20 secs as opposed to about 2 mins to load the files from a CD) and after I pressed "Install now' It said there was an error reading the install.wim file.

Now now boys, don't get all jumpy on me and tell me this is because it's from an external HD. I created a DVD and it had the same problem. That basically told me there was a problem with the ISO.

All in all, the process didn't take long at all. And it was a breeze to just copy the files over the HD. Now that I know how to do it, it'll be a lot more simple in the future. Thanks again orev for that advice. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you.

@flipfire, cut the guy some slack, lol. I gotta give you credit though, definitely put a smile on my face.

 

Bleh im just bored.

Your the 2nd person with the corrupt .ISO problem from digitalriver. Im scared mine probably has it too. When exactly does it give you this error during installation? Did you put eftboot.exe properly? (you have to do this for 64bit)

Ive tried booting off the cd once to test if it burnt properly but never actually went through with the installation

This means the USB booting could have worked just like that. It was the ISO that was the problem all along

 

Yup. I don't know. Basically the Install startup screen comes up and all. and then after it starts loading for like 20 secs. it says error reading that install.wim file. This is the second time it's happened to me. Jeez, this stuff pisses me off.

Whats the eftboot.exe file?

Yup it would have been that simple to boot from USB. if only that stupid file..............#$^%

It gets so frustrating you know, you get this far and boom somethings always gotta go wrong. whatever, I'll get a hold on another ISO.

 

Im not sure if its related to the corrupt file but you were supposed to download the eftboot.exe file seperately and put it somewhere. You could skip this for 32bit but you had to do this for 64bit.

Theres 3 different guides in digitalriver. The main guide doesnt mention this but the other one does

I knew i should have kept bidding on 64bit discs. I nearly won a copy of 64bit Vista business for $15 on ebay. The seller pulled out the item when he saw i was gonna win it for cheap. @$$#0\3!

 

If it gives an error code along with the message, try to do a google search for it. I was talking to someone else who had this problem also, and there were some suggestions on how to go about fixing it.

It's possible that the install.wim file did not download completely/correctly.

 

Yitzer will your old OS still be intact even if the install fails? I might do the 64bit install this weekend, just incase i have a corrupt one aswell i wanna make sure i can go run back to my old 32bit OS

 

Yes, I'm installing it to a separate Partition on my laptop. So I'm gonna have Vista 32/Vista 64/Ubuntu.

If after a while I'm comfortable with 64 and its working well for me with drivers and all. then I'm gonna clean install over my 32 bit partition and make the 64 my main one. smart huh.

I google'd the problem and I'm not getting any real results. One thing I would like to know, if possible, can I copy the install.wim file from a 32 bit install disk, or is it completely different files.?

 

Too bad man. Can I get the link to that guide please. Thanks alot. I'll let you all know how it went after I do it.

The great thing about HP which I really appreciate them doing, is in the swsetup folder they include all their 64 bit drivers. Kinda convenient.

 

No install.wim is the actual install files for 64bit. Youll notice that it is bigger than 32bit's install.wim

I followed this guide exactly and downloaded eftsboot.com here http://www.mydigitallife.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/etfsboot.com .It probably doesnt have anything to do with the corruption error though cause eftsboot is lodged into the bootsector. You might wanna give it a try anyway if you still have spare blank discs

 

Wait. Where do I put this file.

 

After the first 3 files has been extracted..

Again it might have nothing to do with the corrupt install file because this is for cd booting but feel free to give it a try

 

If you have vLite then just use this guide

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/...able-dvd-from-microsoft-wim-with-vlite-guide/

 

I'm confused. whatever though. I will try it again.

 

so you just formatted to fat32, made it an active partition, and setup bios to boot from USB disk first? Imma try this when i get my dv2700 in. should be here next week and the first thing im going to do is run this Vista SP1 RTM install disc.

 

Yup that's all I did. It's pretty simple huh. Well my external HD is 250GB, so I made a 5GB within in the 250GB and then formated it..................etc

The only thing that I'm stuck at is that DAMNED install.wim file, I tried too many times to count, it ain't working.

I guess I'll just have to try a different CD. ^#$^$^

 

I think ill start looking for the actual 64bit vista disc again.

I dont understand why digitalriver dont just put up the actual .iso image of the vista disk instead of following all the instructions. It will be easier for both sides to just put up the .iso since they are allowed to distribute it anyway

 

this is the Vista SP1 image Im going to try: VISTA_AIO-RTM-sp1-x86+x64 By Orbit30

it doesnt include Vista business though. This image is unbranded and Released to Manufacturers, and of course requires activation.

 

on my dv2700t I rearranged my "boot order" so that "USB drive" is first. once i exit out of the "boot order" screen it gives me the options to enable or disable hard drive boot, LAN boot, and DVD boot. Even though it lets me prioritize "USB drive" under "boot order," it never shows up when i hit F9 (quick access to boot order) during start up. Once again the computer just shows CD, hard drive, and LAN boot. What am i doing wrong?

 

The external USB drive must also be bootable, as in it needs to have the correct files in the MBR or the active partition to allow it to boot. You'll have to search google get more details on how to do that.

 

ok, so im getting the problem i stated above because my hard drive is not setup correctly?

So far I made a 5gb Fat32 partition and then marked partition as active. I extracted a bootable ISO i created with vlite onto the hard drive.

Ill look more into bootable usb drives on google,

thanks

 

What's so hard, just make the USB drive the first one to boot, that's what I did and it worked flawlessly.

 

Obviously it's not that easy otherwise someone would not be posting here. How did you make the USB drive? What was on it? What kind of drive was it? How did you make the drive bootable? You must have done something like that first before you were able to make the install, otherwise the disk will not be bootable.

 

eventhough i make "usb drive" 1st in my bios, after i restart my computer and press F9 during boot to get to "boot order," usb drive isnt even on the list. It just shows LAN, Hard Drive, and optical drive.