Gaming Windows 7 RC installation on a USB thumbdrive/SD Card?

[Raki]

Heya,

Does anyone here know how to install a bootable Win7 on a USB Thumbdrive/SD card?

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

you can't install any windows version on a USB stick.
you can live boot 98 or under (because I've seen premade versions) and there is a tool called BartPE to make a LiveXPcd.

If you want to install something to a USB stick, then http://pendrivelinux.com is the place for you.

 

[MadClaw]

Hahahahha, Windows 7 IS DIFFERENT You can install it off a usb stick, you just need about 4gb

1. Download the Windows 7 ISO, (Assuming you've already done that)

2. Use WinRAR to extract it

3. Put the files on your USB stick and click on the installer

 

[myuusmeow]

Hahahahha, Windows 7 IS DIFFERENT You can install it off a usb stick, you just need about 4gb

1. Download the Windows 7 ISO, (Assuming you've already done that)

2. Use WinRAR to extract it

3. Put the files on your USB stick and click on the installer

That may work but I had to do some extra stuff to get it to work.
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-...-working-guide/

Also, op, don't bother with the RC, its old, the RTM is already leaked.
Nevermind lol

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Hahahahha, Windows 7 IS DIFFERENT You can install it off a usb stick, you just need about 4gb

1. Download the Windows 7 ISO, (Assuming you've already done that)

2. Use WinRAR to extract it

3. Put the files on your USB stick and click on the installer

google tells me that all you need to make sure, is that you can boot from it...

 

[Raki]

this guide is nice, but I want to install it ON the thumbdrive - not from the thumbdrive

 

[xJonny]

It's not a good idea to do this, there's no guarantee it'll work on other computers and Windows OS' don't like being run from pen drives. It'll also probably not be great performance wise.

You could maybe try pen drive linux in some form

 

[Raki]

It's not a good idea to do this, there's no guarantee it'll work on other computers and Windows OS' don't like being run from pen drives. It'll also probably not be great performance wise.

You could maybe try pen drive linux in some form

I'm aware of the performance loss due to w/r speeds...

I just want to try it =D my netbook has 4GB of space, so let's try a install onto a SD Card

I may try a slimmed down version as well...hm

 

[Elritha]

Even if it installs and works, the constant reading and writing to flash memory will wear it out in no time. Flash memory has a limited amount of time it can be read and write to.

 

[BiscuitBee]

4GB of space on your netbook? Yikes. Can't you upgrade that to solve your problems?

I wonder if you could install Windows 7 on a USB Hard Drive and just boot off of that every time. The USB speed would be quite the bottleneck, though.

 

[myuusmeow]

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=57299

You could try that that, use vLite to remove unneeded components from Windows 7 (like TV tuner drivers or other languages) to get the install size below 4GB.

 

[Raki]

4GB of space on your netbook? Yikes. Can't you upgrade that to solve your problems?

I wonder if you could install Windows 7 on a USB Hard Drive and just boot off of that every time. The USB speed would be quite the bottleneck, though.

a USB Drive to carry around everytime you want to boot?

and no the flash chips on the eee 701's motherboard are soldered (and no desoldering, reprogramming the controller is not what I want to do...)

Also a SD Card has enough write cycles for this...

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

your best option is to back everything up (like onto a SD card or USB stick)
then install the windows 7 RC.

 

[Chris_Skylock]

this is why im searching for a HARD DISK based netbook. You cant run an OS from a removable storage if it's a Microsoft-based

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

this is why im searching for a HARD DISK based netbook. You cant run an OS from a removable storage if it's a Microsoft-based

uhh...
you DO know that SSD is perfectly usable as a HD right?
Hd's are easily broken physicly (drop netbook. dead. etc..)
SSD's are brilliant, faster etc, just more expensive to make, can be damaged by reading/writing too much (should be fine for several years though)

and I havn't seen a netbook with a HD.

no, his problem wasn't SSD's (windows comes preinstalled on them..) it was lack of space.

 

[Chris_Skylock]

explain to me the 160GB netbooks in the stores near me that's Asus.

I heard SSD have poor life so I woudnt buy any of it unless improved

 

[raulpica]

this is why im searching for a HARD DISK based netbook. You cant run an OS from a removable storage if it's a Microsoft-based
uhh...
you DO know that SSD is perfectly usable as a HD right?
Hd's are easily broken physicly (drop netbook. dead. etc..)
SSD's are brilliant, faster etc, just more expensive to make, can be damaged by reading/writing too much (should be fine for several years though)

and I havn't seen a netbook with a HD.

no, his problem wasn't SSD's (windows comes preinstalled on them..) it was lack of space.

Wrong. They're CRAP for the most part (I have an Acer Aspire One which is SLOW as **** because of the crappy SSD. The 160GB SATA version works great though) and expensive.

Also almost every netbook out there has a normal HD in it nowadays, as they discovered months later that SSDs killed speed with XP.
They work fine with Linux though (in fact, most of the netbooks which still have SSDs on them are shipped with a linux distro).

QUOTE(Raki @ Aug 5 2009, 09:19 PM)

this guide is nice, but I want to install it ON the thumbdrive - not from the thumbdrive

Nope, you can't. Tried it at work with a combo USB/eSATA external drive. Though you can install it on a eSATA drive (or at least it seemed so, before the PC's faulty SATA controller striked and killed the installation at 90%).
On USB drives it'll just give you an error (tried with RC1).

 

[Raki]

SSDs are very fast if you buy a good slc (or the newer kind of mlc) SSD, which is pricey, but you get excellent access times and especially random access which is crap on normal HDDs
random access is usefull if you need one file from the inner range of a HDD and one from the outer range...the HDD's reader will need to move very quickly from the inner range to the outer, even though it's quick it's not that fast as a SSD.

 

[Elritha]

A good SSD is better then most normal HDDs. Older windows operating systems weren't exactly designed for them in mind, even Vista. With windows 7 it is supposed to be more optimised for SSD.

 

[aphirst]

I wouldn't know about Windows 7, but you can install XP to an external HDD. It only seems to work with some motherboards, and once it's setup, it only seems to work with that configuration, but it 'works for me'.

Surely Win7 can be coaxed somehow to run through USB... Something will probably come up a short while after the full release, I would have thought.