Installing OS from External HDD

[Afran]

As in the process of putting together a new system, just want to make sure this is a valid way to install the OS so we're not met with any surprises.

Essentially wanting to use a USB-External-HDD which has contents on it, movies pictures and whatnot and would have Windows 7 on it being the only possible bootable image with the assumption that setting the external drive as the highest boot priority would then let us install Windows 7 to a select drive, obviously not to the external drive it's self but to an ssd on which win7 will need to be reinstalled on.

Tried googling "installing windows 7 from external hard drive" and such, but they typically guide you how to install an os on the external drive it's self, or make the drive nothing more than a bootable file (full format, NTFS etc etc) which isn't an option here as the contents on the external drive aren't possible to back up to another drive due size (of what we own of course)

So yeh, just wanting to make sure we won't run into any issues

 

[caLLous]

Don't see why not but you might run into problems booting from it. You could always put the Win install on a USB stick instead (make sure you use something like Win32 Disk Imager to make sure it's properly bootable. This would format the stick though so that's why I would avoid using a drive to do it. Is it a Windows iso that you have on the external drive?

 

[TdC]

hmm you could use something like daemon tools to mount the ISO within a running windows and start the install from there...

if you put an ISO on an external media it may be that nothing else can exist on that media....so...how about putting the ISO on a throwaway thumb drive or USB stick or something? That's what I did last time I installed a windows...

 

[MYstIC G]

You really do want to go the USB key route here. If you start fucking around with the partitions on the external drive and get it wrong you run the risk of losing all your stuff through user error. USB keys are cheap and cheerful these days and even if you're short on funds you can probably borrow one from someone as you could back up the USB contents to the external hdd, make it an install medium, install windows, wipe the key and restore the data.

 

[Gups]

USB stick is the way to go for sure - afterwards keep it ! I have one in my wallet always never know when I will need to rebuild a system, I also have loads of tools on it also

8 GB wafter thin bootable, windows 7 install files, virus tools etc it doesnt get any better...

 

[soze]

A USB HDD will fail miserably it messes with the partition tables. You get the same problem with a lot of high end USB3 disk keys as they show up as an SSD not a USB stick.