LiquidSolstice Posted October 26, 2010 Share Posted October 26, 2010 So I got fed up with my netbook. It doesn't have an optical drive and I can't find my damn 4 GB USB Stick. I googled and googled for hours trying to figure out how in the hell I can boot from an ISO that resides on the hard drive itself.? Finally, out of desperation, I split my hard drive into a second partition, formatted it, and mapped it (using what was left of my terribly corrupted install of Windows 7 on it), dumped the iso of the Windows 7 disk onto that partition, extracted it using WinRAR, and I ran the Setup.? Lo and behold, it let me install properly! The catch is that it doesn't let you format any part of the drives. I had to install to the newly created partition. This means when my installation completes, it will be on the D: drive, rather than the C: drive. Small pitfall, but before that, let me continue with the process. Once you start the process, it'll copy the Windows files, and at abotu 27% of expanding the files, it'll restart. Once it does, a new entry will be visible in the Bootloader, once is "Windows Setup" and the other is "Windows 7". You pick the Setup, and it continues. I'll post back again once it finishes. With any luck, what I'm hoping to do is use the disk partition tool in the fresh Windows install to delete the other partition, and hopefully re-label the drive as C:. I'll edit this post when it finishes. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/948512-installing-windows-without-dvdusb-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
os2fan2 Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 It's possible to install onto a hard drive without dvd/usb. You could do this, for example, if you have a means for mounting it on another computer. Among the options for Winnt32, you can set the SYSPART and TEMPDRIVE. syspart sets the drive, as seen from 'computer', that will become the boot drive on the netbook. For example, if the netbook has two drives c and d, which are seen as m and n on the other computer, the command is /syspart:m . This writes the root directory of the boot drive, along with the directory $WINNT$.~BS (the equal of the floppy disks) tempdrive points to the drive that will become the systemdrive. This is the drive that will become the one with \WINDOWS in it. If this becomes d: on the netbook, ye use tempdrive:n. Once this is complete, you unmount in the drive, and install it to the netbook. It boots and installs all of the stuff. You can use something like copysource to keep a copy of /i386 on the laptop. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/948512-installing-windows-without-dvdusb-drive/#findComment-593528714 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hdood Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 It is also possible to install it over the network if the machine has wired ethernet and supports PXE booting. It's a lot more work than just going out and buying a 4GB stick though. They don't cost much these days. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/948512-installing-windows-without-dvdusb-drive/#findComment-593528776 Share on other sites More sharing options...
s1k3sT Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 I'm planning to do something similar soon, but I need to boot into the setup from a linux bootloader (not sure which one atm). Any suggestions or would I need to know which bootloader I'm using? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/948512-installing-windows-without-dvdusb-drive/#findComment-593600028 Share on other sites More sharing options...
s1k3sT Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 Regarding my previous post, I think the tool Grub4Dos might do what I'm wanting to do, which is boot windows install files from grub. Anyone have any experience using Grub4Dos like this? I hope it'll be as simple as adding an entry to the grub menu.lst file and directing it to the windows install files or possibly grub>grub4dos>windows install files. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/948512-installing-windows-without-dvdusb-drive/#findComment-593601304 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMHolt57 Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 actually, when you boot into the new installation, it will tell you that it is on the C: drive, don't be confused, this is normal... Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/948512-installing-windows-without-dvdusb-drive/#findComment-593601336 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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