Win7, via USB, to Netbook
August 2nd, 2013
Please bear with me on this one. I have read so much on Google, and I’m still completely and utterly confused!
I apologise in advance for anything silly that I might write — I have zero experience with Windows 7.
Long story short: my friend dropped her netbook and the internal hard drive is cooked (and there is no DVD drive). Anyways, I acquired a legit copy of Win7, and now here’s the problem.
I’ve used the MS USB Win7 Tool to transfer the legit ISO to a 32 GB flash drive. Now I’m running into problems. I planned to use a 16 GB USB drive as the “new” hard drive, and I thought I could just use the 32 GB drive as the SOURCE disk and the 16 GB as the TARGET disk for installation. However, when I load the Win7 setup, it doesn’t recognise the 16 GB. Is it not to possible to install from one USB to the other?
Am I missing something?
Please advise. I’m going crazy here trying to figure this all out.
Thank you kindly,
JiE
P.S. Mods please forgive my n00b-like post; I’ve never posted in Helpdesk before and am really at a loss here.
P.S. Mods please forgive my n00b-like post; I've never posted in Helpdesk before and am really at a loss here.
one of the better (lots of info about the problem) posts I’ve seen here
when you boot the 7 usb the netbook see both drives ?
it give you the choice which to boot from ?
my friend dropped her netbook and the internal hard drive is cooked
is it new enuf to get warranty on the drive
Hello! Thank you for the reply! The netbook itself recognizes the 32 GB Kingston USB Flash Drive, which has Win 7 on it. But once it loads the setup files and such, the 16 GB is not recognised.
When I turn on the netbook, with both drives attached, only the 32 GB one is recognised (because the 16 GB is blank).
UPDATE: For a laugh, I hooked up my old Iomega 80 GB external HDD, in place of the 16 GB Kingston drive, and Win 7 setup DOES recognize it! BUT why the 80 GB exernal drive and not the newer flash drive?
I’d like to keep my 80 GB drive if at all possible.
Any thoughts, Sir?
– J.
P.S. Warranty is long expired. I just checked with her.
Try pre-formatting the 16GB drive to NTFS.
Maybe Windows thinks the drive is too small and you should swap things around and try installing on the 32GB drive.
When I turn on the netbook, with both drives attached, only the 32 GB one is recognised (because the 16 GB is blank).
try making the 16gb bootable as well, or just format it, to see if they are both seen
what’s on th 80gb, just data, but it is formatted
not sure if 16gb is enuf to install windows 7 to
if I remember correctly win7 full requires 16-20gb to install
your 16gb is less than 16gb (prob 15+gb) as windows sees it
Tiny7 rev01(not legit) is a modded version of windows 7 and may see and install to the 16gb drive
will prob run faster as well
Tiny7 rev01 is in apps section (and is all I use)
Nel: I have formatted the 16 to NTFS. Both that and the 32 GB are NTFs. The 80 GB is NTFS, too, and is free of any data. I’ll try reversing the droves ad report back.
Thanks guys!
Hi again! I have made the 16 GB bootable using the same MS tool. However, upon booting with the 16 GB, the 32 GB Kingston drive is now not recognized.
stumped !
see if this tread helps
Windows 7 install on USB drive
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/is/msrgeneraladdin/thread/412519e3-488c-49c9-91cf-73b62f63dd85
Going over it again, what I understand is that you have two USB flash drives, a 16GB and a 32GB one and you want to install Windows 7 on to the 16GB flash using the 32GB as the installation media, and unfortunately, the Windows installations session does not detect the 16GB media as a valid installation point.
The reason lies in that Windows does not allow the installation to removable drives, but instead, requires a fixed drive. The identifying bit of whether the drive is a fixed or a removable one lies in the firmware of the drive controller. It is only a matter of flipping this bit to make the Windows installation session in to thinking that the device is a fixed one.
For this, try Lexar’s BootIt tool. Connect your drive, select the drive from the drop down in BootIt and hit ‘Flip Removable Bit’ and that ought to do it if everything goes well. But a word of caution is that this method does not work with all devices as each have unique methods of accessing the controller firmware.
Download link for BootIt (355KB):
http://www.mediafire.com/?zdmekxk8p2phbrk
Another word of advice is it is better to get the in-built hard drive replaced and install on it instead of using a removable drive, as removable drives have limited read-write cycles. You’ll burn out the drive because of the huge amount read-write cycles involved and to make matters worse, formatting it to NTFS accelerates this wear and tear due to it being a journalling file system. Getting the hard drive replaced is a more concrete solution.
Hope this helps. Cheers, mate.
Wow! Thank you Zedd. I’ll pass along the info to my friend and see what she wants to do.
Thanks all for your help!!!
Cheers.