[Secured Tim]

Ok, so you have downloaded Windows 7 beta, now you have realized that you can't install it on your small Netbook like Acer Aspire One, Asus Eee PC, MSI Wind or Dell Mini because they don't have DVD drive!

Instead of buying an external optical drive, follow this guide to make your USB drive bootable and install Windows 7 through it.

Step 1 – Let’s create a bootable USD Drive!

1. Clearly, the first thing you need is a USB drive and the one I used was an 8GB Seagate model.
2. Plug the drive into your PC.
3. Open a command prompt as administrator.
4. Get the drive number by typing:

• diskpart
  
• list disk
  
• On my machine the USB disk was number 1.

5. Format the drive by typing:

• select disk 1
  
• clean
  
• create partition primary
  
• select partition 1
  
• active
  
• format fs=NTFS
  
• assign
  
• exit

6. Mount the Windows 7 beta iso using Daemon Tools or similar.
7. Navigate to the boot directory

• cd E:\boot

8. Using bootsect, we’ll make the USB drive a bootable NTFS drive, ready for a Windows 7 image (my drive was labeled G):

• bootsect /nt60 G:

9. We are finished with the command prompt now, so you can close it.

Step 2 – Copy the installation files from the mounted Windows 7 iso to the USB drive.

Use explorer for copying and pasting.

Step 3 – Install on the Netbook

1. Plug in the USB drive and turn on the netbook
2. On start up press <F12> to select the bootable drive
3. Select the USB drive and press return
4. The netbook will boot from the USB drive and the installation will begin
5. Install as normal.

Guide by Garyshortblog

[FalseAgent]

can this same method be used for installing vista?

[Syzygy]

Step 1 – Let’s create a bootable USD Drive!

American Dollars?

Thanks for the tutorial btw, my friend will want this.

Also please visit the site in my sig.

This post has been edited by Syzygy: 19 January 2009 - 09:23 AM

[Bill_Puertas]

awesone.. did you know something like this for winxp or vista?

bye

[Syzygy]

Bill_Puertas, on Jan 19 2009, 11:07 PM, said:

awesone.. did you know something like this for winxp or vista?

bye

Actually, it might just be the same, but instead of using Windows 7 ISO, use a Windows XP or Vista ISO.

[ike_pl]

...for vista go here http://kurtsh.spaces...3...!1665.entry , it's as easy as 7 install.

With XP it's much more complicated because you have to use Preinstalled Enviroment (like BartPE*) to run setup.


* BartPE - http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

This post has been edited by ike_pl: 19 January 2009 - 01:29 PM

[ky9292]

Huh, I was actually able to do it over a network using another computer's DVD drive.

[MaximusAxis]

How much space do we need to run Win7 efficiently?

[CommonSense]

ky9292, on Jan 19 2009, 09:22 AM, said:

Huh, I was actually able to do it over a network using another computer's DVD drive.

Yeah you can do that too

MaximusAxis, on Jan 19 2009, 09:38 AM, said:

How much space do we need to run Win7 efficiently?

I had 10GB dedicated to it and it ran fine. You can do 15 to be safe.

This post has been edited by CommonSense: 19 January 2009 - 02:44 PM

[Syzygy]

MaximusAxis, on Jan 20 2009, 12:38 AM, said:

How much space do we need to run Win7 efficiently?

It'll want 15GB, only need 8GB and I gave it 50.2GB