Reinstalling Windows 7 from an external HDD?

Is this at all possible?

I received this netbook w/o any reinstallation disks. There's an option to restore/repair the OS by pressing F8 (i think) but that's only if the hard drive hasn't completely failed I assume. I have a 500gb external HDD and I was wondering if I could "back up" Windows 7 onto it and in the event that I have to reinstall the OS, I could just plug in the USB and do it.

I know the simpler thing to do would to just buy a 32-64gb (not sure if 32 is big enough) USB flash drive, but I'd rather not spend the money if I don't have to

Thanks!

*If this is not the right place for this topic, could you please move it?*

 

You're better off backing up the preinstalled license and burning your own Windows 7 DVD for a reinstall should you ever need it, that way you get a clean install with nothing else extra loaded in the system.

Another option is use Window 7's backup tool to create an image of your drive and you can always restore off of that... although you would still need a DVD to boot from...

 

have some small usb stick? that's enough for the windows recovery. then you can use the backup tool + the recovery stick.

i think a half-a-gig usb stick is good enough. i bet you can even get that for free from someone who got a 4gb stick by now.

BUT

should be possible to even set it up on the external hdd, though. google around for "windows 7 setup on usb stick" and look out for diskpart tipps. you should be able to setup your usb disk to be bootable, and then just copy the repair-disk files (you need to download them/create them on another pc that can burn disks) over to the hdd. best: mark them hidden so you don't see them anymore. and then start backing up to the hdd.

 

I did the reinstalling from 500GB ext.HDD. I ISO-ed the win 7 DVD in it. But then I scratched my head and thinking the 400+ GB I'm wasting (won't risk tinkering the space left if it's my only source of installing windows).

If you have that recovery partition, try to extract .wim files that come with it. Or if it's too much trouble, just try to image your entire disk to your external.

So, I usually reserve my external HDD for imaging (I use windows 7 default imaging) and the rest is just like davepermen said. You only need 200+ mb for the repair disk.

 

Thanks guys, +rep!