[Guide] Clean Install Win7 without DVD or USB!

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

How to CLEAN Install Windows 7 directly from Hard drive ? NO DVD or USB needed!!

For example, you have a netbook or desktop that you want to install Windows 7 onto, but can?t use DVD or USB for whatever reason. This method will allow you to boot and install Windows directly from the hard drive. This guide involves plugging the hard drive into another working computer, preparing the hard drive, placing it back in the system, and installing Windows as usual.

This guide only applies to Windows 7. The steps for Vista are almost identical but require an important additional step.

Part 1: Preparing the HD with Windows 7 setup files.

- Connect the hard drive to another working computer.

- Format the hard drive to NTFS (Quick format works fine; multiple partitions also work).

- Copy the following from your Windows 7 disc:

• Boot
  
• Sources
  
• Bootmgr
  
• Setup.exe
  

Part 2: Making the HD bootable

Using Windows XP, Vista, or 7, open CMD as Admin (Windows key + R, type CMD, hit Enter)

Enter the following commands, (replace X with what applies to your hard drive):

diskpart
list disk
select disk X
list partition
select partition X
active
exit
X:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 X:[/CODE]

Example:

Exit and shutdown.

Note: If you?re working on a 32-bit system, and you want to install 64-bit Windows, you may get problems trying to run the last command (X:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 X:).

Solutions:

• Use a computer with a 64-bit version of Windows
  

OR

• A little trick that worked for me: If you have a 32-bit Windows 7 disc, you can copy bootsect.exe from that and replace the 64-bit one (boot\bootsect.exe).
  

[u]Part 3: Booting and installing Windows[/u]

Place the hard drive back into the target machine. Make sure that the BIOS is configured to boot from the hard drive. If you did everything correctly, you should see ?Windows is loading files? and setup will load. Install Windows as usual (but don?t format your drive this time in the installer ? otherwise it will erase the Windows 7 setup files too!).

[u]Part 4: Final steps/housecleaning[/u]

We?ll have to quickly edit the boot menu once Windows is installed.

In Windows 7, hit the Windows key + R. Type msconfig, and hit Enter.

Click to the Boot tab at the top.

Click 'Windows Setup (\windows)', and hit Delete.

Click OK.

Click 'Exit without restart'.

And lastly, delete ?setup.exe? and ?Sources? from your hard drive root (this will free up 2-3gb).

Feel free to comment :) I hope this helps some people out.

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

It won't let me edit the post above, but I wanted to point out something important.

Part 1: Preparing the HD with Windows 7 setup files.

- Connect the hard drive to another working computer.

- Format the hard drive to NTFS (Quick format works fine; multiple partitions also work).

- Copy the following from your Windows 7 disc to the root of your hard drive:

• Boot
  
• Sources
  
• Bootmgr
  
• Setup.exe
  

[Starbuck84]

Never tried this, but might give this a go! Thanks for the tip and explanation! :)

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

It also installs much faster from the hard drive than DVD or USB!

[+BudMan MVC]

seems like a pretty long way to go about it -- why not just apply the install.wim image directly to the drive/partition you wanting to install to?? Faster, less steps!

you can view the images in your install.wim with /info

So snipped this up a bit just make it easier to view

C:\>imagex /info C:\oldcomp\one\win7-x64-sp1\sources\in

ImageX Tool for Windows
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.
Version: 6.1.7600.16385

WIM Information:
----------------
Path:	    C:\oldcomp\one\win7-x64-sp1\sources\install.wim
Image Count: 4
Compression: LZX
Part Number: 1/1
Attributes:  0xc
			 Integrity info
			 Relative path junction


Available Image Choices:
------------------------
<wim>
  <img index="1">
	    <productname>Microsoftr Windowsr Operating System</productname>
	  <editionid>HomeBasic</editionid>
	 <name>Windows 7 HOMEBASIC</name>
    <description>Windows 7 HOMEBASIC</description>


  <img index="2">
	  <productname>Microsoftr Windowsr Operating System</productname>
	  <editionid>HomePremium</editionid>
	  <name>Windows 7 HOMEPREMIUM</name>
    <description>Windows 7 HOMEPREMIUM</description>


  <img index="3">
	  <productname>Microsoftr Windowsr Operating System</productname>
	  <editionid>Professional</editionid>
	  <name>Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL</name>
    <description>Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL</description>


  <img index="4">

	  <productname>Microsoftr Windowsr Operating System</productname>
	  <editionid>Ultimate</editionid>
	 <description>Windows 7 ULTIMATE</description>

</wim>

So if you wanted to install say home prem you would use image 2 so something like

imagex /apply d:\path\install.wim 2 driveletterofHDD:\

Seems a bit easier to me ;)

BTW - you can grab imageX from MS, its part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK)

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

How did you get it to boot with your method?

[Dan~]

Good guide and interesting but can't see anyone ever requring this method. It'll be more of a pain removing the HDD etc etc, than to just use a USB, and cmon everyone has a suitable usb stick :laugh:

[+BudMan MVC]

"cmon everyone has a suitable usb stick"

You would think so yes, but not always the case.

Also - what if its 2am and you need to install, and no stores open and your can not find or your USB stick or its dead, etc. etc.. ;)

What if all you have is the the WIM from the factory recovery partition on some OEM box, etc. As to the how will it boot ? Tell you what I will post up screens of actually doing it on a VM so you can see ;)

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

I personally don't mind removing hard drives. It's a really easy task, even on laptops/netbooks. But I can see how many others would rather not do that.

As to the how will it boot ? Tell you what I will post up screens of actually doing it on a VM so you can see ;)

I know how to make it bootable myself (a few different ways, too), I'm curious what your method is, and perhaps it's simpler than the ways I've been doing it. Thanks.

Also - what if its 2am and you need to install, and no stores open and your can not find or your USB stick or its dead, etc. etc.. ;)

Haha, exactly! After working with computers for so long, I've encountered all sorts of situations like this.

With this method, for example, what can be done is:

take out the hard drive,

place it in another machine,

backup the files you want from that drive,

format the drive,

copy Windows install files, make it bootable, etc,

and copy the backup onto the newly formatted drive

Then when you place the drive back into the machine, you can install Windows, and your backup is already copied to the drive.

If you have lots to backup, it's a whole lot quicker to backup the hard drive when it's plugged in via SATA (as opposed to USB).

[+BudMan MVC]

"I know how to make it bootable myself (a few different ways, too)"

Comes down to what image you applied, in the case of say install.wim from MS w7 DVD - it does not even create the \boot\BCD and bootmgr is not on the drive. Now with say recovery wims from your OEM more then likely there is boot folder and has a BCD, and bootmgr is there but MBR is not written to disk, etc. And depending on how your trying to deploy it the BCD might be wrong and need manipulation.

You could either manually put the files on after image if missing, create the MBR and BCD or depending on the tools you have available -- for example I have a recovery PE iso/usb/vhd I can always just boot too and have all the tools I need like imagex, bootsect and bootrec, bcdboot and bcdedit etc.. etc.. to fix it up and have it booting in 2 shacks, and writing the image only takes a few minutes to deploy and then couple more to fix it up for boot.

Quite often a quick way to get it booting after you deploy the image from the wim is to just boot the install media if you don't have a custom disk like I do on the machine you were using to deploy the wim image to the disk with and have it repair the startup. Reason you would do this vs a normal install is for one its FASTER!! And second you don't have to worry about the hardware being different the hardware your putting the drive into - for example you could deploy a 64 bit image from a 32 bit machine, etc. etc..

It comes down to your skill set and comfort zone, I have all the tools I need with pretty much all the time. And have some custom wim files, and or quite often take an image of the machine that I am working with as backup before I even start dicking with it, etc.

[Dan~]

If it's 2am, go to bed :laugh:

[Gladen]

Hey Monkee!

 

Thanks sooo much for this tip! I was getting nowhere, untill I found your post, and after 15 minutes, I'm on a roll again with my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on an otherwise formatted disk, and no access to DVD-Rom or USB boot :-D

 

This post of yours really has it all, and serves the solution on a big fat silver platter! Awesome!

[issh]

Oo what fun! I remember sturggling to install Windows 7 on an old laptop and failed because it had CD and USB issues. I will use this method in future. :woot:

[neo1911]

If you encounter this error: "We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files." when you try to install Windows 7/8

This happens if you are trying to install Windows 7/8 from a USB disk.

Solution:

1. Do the following:

• Check if you have an SD Card in the system. If you do, you remove it and run setup again.
• Once the setup fails to find the partition, just close the setup window (the top-right-hand side red X does the job).
• From that point, you should be brought back at the initial setup screen.Choose "Repair" then go to the advanced tools and start the command line.

Start DISKPART
Type LIST DISK and identify your SSD disk number (from 0 to n disks).
Type SELECT DISK <n> where <n> is your SSD disk number.
Type CLEAN
Type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
Type ACTIVE
Type FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK
Type ASSIGN
Type EXIT twice (one to get out of DiskPart, the other to exit the command line tool)

2. In the setup screen where you get that error message, click on back button twice. Then just unplug your USB drive and wait 5 seconds. Then replug it and go ahead by accepting licence agreement. Then choose Custom setup and the installation will proceed.

 

3. If it still doesn't work, burn a bootable DVD from Windows 7/8 iso file and boot setup from it.