Install Windows 7 without USB or DVD

Install Windows 7 without USB or DVD - Printable Version

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Install Windows 7 without USB or DVD - Aut•ono•mous - 11-11-2013

Installing Windows 7 Without USB or DVD

Hey everyone, haven't done a tutorial in a few days, been running out of ideas so some suggestions would be awesome! Today my tutorial is going to be on something I've logged many hours trying to figure out, Installing Windows 7 (works with Vista, XP, & 8 too!) without using a DVD or USB thumb drive. There's a few ways this could be useful, whether you're trying to install on a Netbook without a DVD drive without a thumb drive of any kind, or you're like me & finally ran out of DVDs & don't feel like spending the money on new ones for such a simple project.

Let's get started on this, due to this being a tutorial on installing an OS, I apologize for lack of screenshots, but I'll be as descriptive as I can be.

Things you'll need:

A harddrive to install Windows on
Windows 7 ISO (or any Windows version)
Working computer capable of connecting a new harddrive.

Let's get the prep work done early:

Go download your Windows ISO, you shouldn't have too much difficulty finding your version either as a torrent or direct download. A simple Google search should do.

After you have your ISO downloaded we're going to need to extract the files of the ISO, you can use MagicISO (download link in the 'Things You'll Need' section) or if you have Daemon or a tool capable of mounting an ISO without a disc, that'll work too.

Open up MagicISO & navigate to your ISO, double-click the IMG file & above you'll see the contents.

Spoiler:

Create a new folder on your Desktop for easy access & drag & drop the files into this folder. Now we have what we need ready to go.

Spoiler:

Format your drive.

Now I'm using Ubuntu, so to format my drive I'm using Gparted, which makes things a lot simpler. You can get a live CD of Gparted to perform this step, if you want, but that might defeat the reason you need this tutorial :troll: (although Gparted will fit on just a standard CD with 700MB while Windows 7 requires a DVD with at least 4GB), but I'll include the Gparted method & the CMD method below.

Using Gparted:

If you prefer to use CMD for this step please ignore this & scroll down to the CMD method!

Open up Gparted (if on a Linux system, if you're using a live CD then boot it up) then select the drive you wish to install Windows to.

[Image: q2T9oJ0.png]

BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO GET THE WRONG DRIVE! We will be formatting the drive, so be sure you get the right drive & don't damage your internal drive.

Now if is mounted (shows padlock) right click & select Unmount. If not then proceed to formatting. Right click on the partition & select Format To.. & click on NTFS. After that go to Edit at the top & select "Apply All Operations", this may take a minute depending on your drive's size. If Gparted does not respond, don't be alarmed, this happens sometimes & the operations will complete successfully!

[Image: CzspVMZ.png]

After the format completes, right click your new NTFS partition & select 'Manage Flags' & check the 'boot' flag. This is the last step to the format. Go to Edit>Apply all operations again, now we're done with formatting the drive!

[Image: n3HPxje.png]

Using CMD:

Using CMD to format the drive, is a little more difficult but if you don't have Gparted then this is the way to do it.
Using Windows XP, Vista, or 7, open CMD as Admin (Windows key + R, type CMD, & hit Enter)

Enter the following commands, in order;

'X' represents your drive's, replace it with the letter of the drive you're formatting.

[Image: tuOWHMj.jpg]

Code:
diskpart

Code:
list disk

Code:
select disk X

Code:
list partition

Code:
select partition X

Code:
active

Code:
exit

Code:
X:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 X:

There, now if all was successful then you're ready for the next step!

Throw the files on the drive now.

Alright, this part's easy. The files you'll need from the ISO are;

Sources
Bootmgr
Boot

Mount the drive that you want to install Windows to & copy and paste these files to the drive's root directory. Now if you did everything right, you're done. Now restart your computer & enter the boot menu & select your drive. If all was done correctly, you should see "Windows is loading files..." now just continue through the installation like normal & enjoy!