Hi all messer tn here, listening to Jim Reeves,for a 43 year old this is odd, thanks mum for bringing me up on this music...xxxxx Any how... Just sat here messing about with W7 and the new "RT 7 Lite" It seems OK to me. Even if it is just to make a good working bootable DVD. I got to thinking, making dvd's easy. Installing W7 off a USB stick,ok if the read write speed of the USB is high. What i have not done is install W7 onto a SATA HDD from another internall IDE HDD. Formatted the same way as the USB stick i cant see why W7 would not install off 1 HDD onto another. Has anybody done this, i would think this would be a fast way of installing an OS. What does anybody else recon... "Welcome to my world" sing it Jim........
Just while making myself a new DVD to test using RT 7Lite i noticed it as an option to make a USB stick too...mmmmmmmmmmmmm
Last time I installed from a USB (a cheap one) drive it took 6 1/2 minutes from start to the final desktop, using DVD to install took 20 minutes on the same machine... it also depends on your PC config... My 2 cents...
Cheers guys, i know installing from a USB is faster than DVD but i was wondering can you install W7 from an internal IDE HDD . An empty HDD whicch would just have the OS files on it..
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you can, I just haven't tried it with windows 7. You might even be able to install it using the same internal drive with a partition. It might even be faster than a usb install. You might have to take into consideration the time used to install the 2nd drive though.
I think the only way now is to try it for my self. My system has 4 HDD's in The main OS,a 500 gig i use for to store files on and two which i mes about testing OS installs on and running KeyGens on to keep my main OS clean... Just love messing...
Its deffinitly faster from HD. Seeing how you said internal HD, theres NT6.X_fast_installer_091220 or what i do. I use a weird method, but i use easybcd (or bcd edit) to change the bcd entries when booting an already installed OS (win 7). XP on a 20 gig with the BCD, then a 100 gig Win7 as a main install, a 20 gig testing drive, and then extra partitions for space. In my bcd menu, I have XP, Win7, a Win7pe.wim, and a Win7Ultimate.wim in a sources folder on the XP installed drive. Then when i boot, if i want to redoo windows 7 i just select the "Install Win7 from Win7Ultimate.wim" in the bcd menu upon boot, and it runs the install routine. I do this for testing releases on a real machine on an extra partition on the fly; just add my new install.wim. Its only generally faster in the stage 1 of copying files before the first reboot during install, and it doesnt seem to see my $oem$ in sources.
Easy BCD...Yes used it but when i have more than one OS installed on different HDD i find it better just simply selecting which HDD to boot first from the BIOS. I just make sure when i install a fresh OS i take the power out any other drive,this way i dont have the bother of the boot files being over writen by the newer OS.
Yes, I have done this and it is very fast. Configure the drive, make sure it is formated and active, drag the contents of the DVD to the hard drive, boot to it, install windows (don't format, for obvious reasons). After installing windows run EasyBCD and remove the extra entry (the one for setup) otherwise you will see a boot menu on every startup. EDIT, also note the files and directories that were drug from the DVD, you will need to delete them after install. I did this on a computer with no DVD and booting from usb wasn't an option, I had to prep the target drive in a different computer.
Thanks for the info.... I have just made myself a new W7 disc using RT 7 Lite.....Worked a treat. Installed pretty quick i must say from a DVD. What i am gunna do is just have my two "mess about" HDD's plugged in. Format one drive as i would a USB stick,load it full of OS files and test to see if i can do it and how fast. Probebly tomorow now.... Damn i hate working nights. No play time....
putting all the DVD install files on an active partition HDD works 100% - around 15 minutes on a Western Digital green but if you have a Raptor it could take much less. TIPS: prepare HDD before hand - format and mark as "active" plug it in the Master 0 = number 1 SATA plug unplug all your other drives when installing when finished installing you can move all the DVD install files back to a folder use RUN > msconfig to configure other OS's or easyBCD you can put all your drivers and programs/portables on the drive as well
I finally got round to testing this. Wow under 15 mins to install W7 from scratch. Fast or what... BUT !!!! I did not like what it did. When i unplugged the drive the files were on the pc would not boot. I tried to repair using a system dvd,no luck. It would only boot while the HDD with the files on was plugged in. I tried installing this way a few times to see if i was maing some silly mistake and got the same result each time. Running EasyBCD did not help either. But i aint bothered really. Did what i wanted to try nd it sort of worked a treat.
Sorry for the off topic question, but can someone give me a thread or guide to install Win 7 from a USB?
THe reason it did this is because the original boot record was on the drive with the files, by removing it you removed the boot record. It works best if you place the DVD setup files on the drive you are going to install to. That is why we instructed to edit the boot loader with easybcd, to remove the setup option. Alse delete the dvd files. Works great.
Install Win 7 to an E-Sata Drive either connected to your mobo's E-Sata port or - if you don't have one - via any other sata port other than the first one. You can make an E-Sata drive without a case if you get hold of an E-Sata bracket which usually has two ports on the back and a molex power supply - you need 2 and an E-Sata cable if the barcket has E-Sata ports and you don't have a case - if it has normal sata ports you only need a hard drive - my old gigabyte board supplied one of these brackets with sata ports and a molex power supply. You don't even need these but this way you can shut your case. A lot of cases are both USB and E-Sata and installing to E-Sata is just like installing to any internal drive - I use this drive as install disk and backup. Not all mobos support hot swap though so a dual case is a good idea if you don't want to leave the drive on all the time 'cause if you do it might as well be internal.
download the latest EasyBCD 2.0 Beta - Build 93.exe from Neosmart forum - you need to join to download (free) it has an option to change boot drive in the BCD management options.