Anyone who has at least once encountered installing the Microsoft Windows operating system knows that you can create a bootable DVD or bootable flash drive, the latter is often used due to its large bandwidth, which speeds up the installation of Windows.
But how to go further and create a bootable hard drive? And we'll talk about this below.

In fact, it has been possible to create bootable hard drives for a long time; the ability to install from them was available with images of the operating systems Windows 7, 8 and 10. After creating it and connecting it to a personal computer, the installation procedure will look the same as from a DVD disk or USB drive.

Let's do this step by step.

First step, this is connecting our hard drive to another computer on which the image we need is recorded and the operating system is already installed. Once connected, for proper operation, it is recommended to format it using Microsoft Windows, just as is done with a regular flash drive. Formatting is carried out in the NTFS file system.

Step two, after formatting is complete, we will use a small program called BOOTTICE, with which we will create a bootable hard drive (you need to run it as an administrator). In the program, go to the “Physical Disks” tab and select our disk from the drop-down list, then click “Process MBR”.

In the window that opens, we need to select the “GRUB4DOS” option and then click the “Install / Config” button at the bottom.

A window will open in front of us, where we need to successively press two buttons “Read from disk” and “Save to disk”, after completing the operation, click “OK”.

Step three, recording the operating system image to our created bootable hard drive. It is enough to take the desired image of Windows 7, 8 or 10 (.ISO file) and unpack it directly to our disk.

The fourth and final step is to connect our drive to a personal computer. In the BIOS we select to boot from our HDD, where after saving the settings we will begin installing the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The advantage of this method is that Windows installs much faster and can be used in the absence of a DVD drive or flash drive.

As if installing an OS is not something complicated, and my opinion is that it is enough to be friends with the computer and have two more hands in addition to your head - one right and the other left. To install the OS on your computer, you need a boot disk or bootable USB flash drive.

But what to do if you have neither one nor the other, the optical drive does not work, or you have a netbook? After thinking a little, I remembered that I have an external USB pocket for HDD and a free old HDD 2.5\’\’ I also have it. In general, if you have a pocket hard drive, you can make it bootable.

There are utilities for this purpose that can be used to do this, but I decided to use standard Windows tools.

There are a lot of descriptions and videos on the Internet, but, unfortunately, there is one problematic point that the authors for some reason omit. Well, okay, I'll start in order.

Before working with a disk, be sure to transfer and save the necessary information from this disk to another medium.

I will carry out all settings using standard Windows 8.1 tools. There may be some differences from previous Windows releases, but if there are any, they are not significant.

First of all, I want to note that making an external HDD bootable is much more convenient. I divided the disk into two partitions, one contains the Windows distribution, the other partition is for my needs.

1. We connect the USB pocket and go to Disk management.

Attention! All data on the disk will be destroyed!

If you have Windows 8 installed on your PC,1 right-click: Start/Disk Management;

If Windows is earlier versions, open the Computer Management console: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / expand Storage Devices / left click Disk Management.

See screenshot:

2. Select an external HDD drive. Be extremely careful; if you select another disk by mistake, all information will be destroyed.

In my case, this is Disk 1. As you can see in the screenshot, the disk is divided into two volumes (partitions):

3. Delete disk partitions:

4. Create new disk partitions. One for the distribution, the second will remain for your needs:

Right-click on a free disk field and select the command in the context menu Create a simple volume:

5. In the Create Simple Volume Wizard window that appears, click the button Further:

Specify the volume size as 4404 megabytes and click Next. Please note that the size is indicated in megabytes. And since 1 gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes, then we get 1024×4.3 = 4403.2 megabytes for the distribution partition (mine weighs 4.18 GB, for example);

In this dialog, you need to format the new partition (FAT 32), click Further then Ready:

6. After this, you need to make the created partition active (don’t forget, because the computer will boot from this partition), to do this:

Right click the mouse and select the command in the context menu Make the section active.

We respond to the confirmation request YES.

The external HDD looks like this:

7. In the same order, we format the second partition on the disk, preferably in NTFS, but do not make it active.

Copying Windows to the active partition of an external HDD

Copying a Windows distribution to a bootable external HDD is quite simple and easy.

From boot DVD:

Open the installation DVD in Explorer, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of the external HDD;

From the ISO image:

By and large, an ISO image is a kind of archive. So you can open it using any archiver. You can also open the ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools. Well, if you have Windows 8 or 8.1 installed on your PC, then open it with Explorer. Select all folders and files and copy them to the active partition of the external HDD;

That's it, your external HDD can act as bootable media. Just reboot and set the boot priority to USB HDD in the BIOS (depending on the BIOS type).

• When you turn on the laptop, press F2 to enter the BIOS;
• Go to the tab Boot;
• IN Boot Priority order install USB HDD;
• Click F10, and then OK.

If that doesn't work, check out this article.

Save the changes and proceed to install Windows.

As we can see from the text, preparing an external HDD for installing Windows is quite simple. And my description will not be complete if I do not talk about one problem that for some reason is rarely written about on the Internet.

Making the hard drive partition active

When I divided the hard drive into two volumes, for some reason unknown to me, not a single partition of the disk could be made active. This function was not available in the context menu.

The active partition is the partition from which the computer boots.

There are two ways to make a section active:

1. Using the Computer Management console. We have already considered this method, but, unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the Make partition active command may not be available. The solution to this problem is also not difficult. Remember how to prepare a bootable USB flash drive from the Command Line.
2. Using the Command Line, through the utility diskpart. The second method is a little more complicated, but more effective. You just need to do all the operations carefully and slowly.

Setting the active partition using the command line

1. Connect an external USB HDD;

2. Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt. Right-click and select Run as administrator.

3. In the window that opens, write the command diskpart and press the button Enter. An invitation line to work with the utility will appear – DISKPART>;

4. Enter the command list disk and press the button Enter. You will see all the disks installed on your computer;

5. We select the disk with which we will work. To do this, enter the command select disk 0, where “0” is the disk number in the list, i.e. for my external drive there will be a command select disk 1. Click the button Enter, the message Disk 1 selected will appear;

6. Next, you need to find all partitions on the selected disk. Enter the command list partition and press the button Enter.

7. We select the section we will work with. Enter the command select partition 1, where 1 is the section number in the list, i.e. for the section that we make active. Click Enter, a message will appear Section 1 selected.

8. Mark the selected partition as active, to do this, enter the command active. Click the button Enter, a message will appear DiskPart: Partition marked as active.

That's all. Good luck.

A bootable USB Flash or HDD drive is convenient because you can avoid using CD/DVD to install the OS and use diagnostic programs such as Memtest, MHDD, Acronis TI.

A “multi-boot” flash drive or HDD is good because you don’t have to format the entire disk for each program, but install all the necessary programs there once and, when booting from it, select the one you need through a beautiful menu. In the case of an HDD, it is convenient to create a separate small partition for this.

There are many solutions for flash drives (for example, http://eee-pc.ru/wiki/soft:usb_multiboot), but, as a rule, they do not work with USB HDD. On Habré I only found information about installing Win7 from a USB HDD, but a year ago attempts to reproduce this were unsuccessful. To install Windows 7 from a flash drive, there is MS Win7 DVD Tool, but again it does not work with HDD. So let's create our own multiboot USB HDD using GRUB4DOS.

We will need:

• USB HDD (everything described should also work for flash drives).
• Windows OS (of course, you can do this in the same way from a Linux-based OS, but I don’t currently have the opportunity to check the performance and the presence of pitfalls).
• Motherboard (BIOS) with support for booting from USB drives. If booting from USB is not supported, you can use Plop, more on that below.

Let's get started

1. Download HP USBFW and format our drive. Usually everyone, including me, skips this step. It may work without it, but personally, I tried all the standard formatting options from Windows 7, but booting from my 320GB Toshiba did not work (it froze immediately after selecting it in the Boot menu) before using this utility.
2. If you used HP USBFW from the previous point, you can delete the partition it created for the entire disk and create your own, smaller one (preferably FAT32, otherwise problems may arise with some programs and the OS), and leave the remaining space for “file dumping”.
3. Install the GRUB4DOS bootloader in the MBR. It is recommended to use the first option so as not to make a mistake when choosing a disk or partition.
   1. You can use the GUI: to do this, download grubinst-1.1-bin-w32-2008-01-01, run grubinst_gui.exe, select the disk, click Refresh V Part list and select the desired section. The rest of the settings can be left untouched.
   2. Or in the console with the command: grubinst.exe hd(disk number, partition number) The disk number can be found in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).
4. Copying files grldr And Menu.lst from the archive grub4dos-0.4.4.zip to the root of the section.

You can reboot and check the functionality of our multiboot drive.

To check the functionality of many programs, it is not necessary to reboot the computer every time. You can use virtual machines: MobaLiveCD or VirtualBox. For VB, execute in the console: "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage" internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "C:\USBHDD.VDI" -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive1 where the number in PhysicalDrive is the number of our boot disk, and indicate the resulting file (C:\USBHDD.VDI) as the hard drive when creating the machine. However, some operating systems (such as Windows 7) may not work this way.

Examples of installing some OS and programs

Memmers86+

Download the ISO image from off. site memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.iso.zip and throw it on our boot HDD (do not forget to unpack the .zip archive).

Open Menu.lst with a text editor and add the following there:
title Memtest find --set-root /mt420.iso map /mt420.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader ()
And let's try to figure out what these commands mean.
title Memtest - the name of the item (Memtest) that will be displayed in the menu.
map/mt420.iso (hd32) - loading an ISO image located in the root of the boot disk (CD-ROM emulation).
root(hd32) - makes the virtual CD-ROM root.
chainloader() - transfers control to another bootloader (if nothing is specified in brackets, then the root one is used, in this case hd32).

Ubuntu 10.4

We also drop the ISO image from ubuntu.com onto the HDD and write it in Menu.lst (the image is renamed ubuntu1.iso):

Title Ubuntu map /ubuntu1.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) kernel /casper/vmlinuz iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu1.iso boot=casper quiet splash -- locale=ru_RU initrd /casper/initrd.lz

Windows 7

But with Win 7 it’s a little more complicated.

Method 1:

Copy all files from the Windows 7 disk (image) and add them to Menu.lst:
title Install Windows 7 find --set-root /bootmgr chainloader /bootmgr

In some cases it works, but various errors may occur during installation. In addition, this method will only work if there is only one Windows 7 on the hdd, otherwise (for example, if we want to put x86 and x64 there), the installation of the first one found will start.

Method 2:

UPD: automation of this method: rghost.ru/20467691 or greenflash.su/_fr/7/7487664.7z. The files from the archive (except for menu.lst and seven.iso) must be copied to the root of the section (or the paths in Menu.lst must be changed accordingly).

Possible problems and errors

Error 60: File for drive emulation must be in one contiguous disk area

Solution: You need to defragment the image. For example, using the Contig program from Mark Russinovich. Usage: contig.exe g:\ubuntu1.iso in the console.

BIOS does not support booting from USB, freezes, takes a long time to load and other problems associated with booting from a USB HDD

Every user sooner or later is faced with the need to install an operating system. Even if it is configured and seems to be working properly, a critical failure can occur at any time, and often the problem cannot be solved except by reinstalling it.

A boot disk that was prepared in advance comes to the rescue. However, in some cases, a disk is not the solution. Either the problem occurred on a netbook that does not have a disk drive, or due to a failure it is impossible to boot from the disk. The flash drive can also be made bootable. But this requires a sufficiently capacious free flash card. What to do?

Try preparing a bootable external drive (hard drive). There are both specialized utilities that provide this, and the ability to do everything necessary with built-in Windows programs.

If the hard drive that you decide to adapt for this purpose contains information that is significant to you, then copy it to other media or send it to the cloud. Ideal, of course, when there is nothing on the disk.

We turn on the USB pocket and go to the disk management section, either through the start menu directly, or through the control panel and administration. Select the required disk (extremely carefully, if there is an error, all data on the media will be irretrievably destroyed!), delete all partitions, create new ones.

Let's say one for the operating system, the other for your own special purposes. You can split it into at least 10-12 parts, if you see the need, or you can make only one section, which is essentially the whole disk - a matter of taste. Please note that the partition size must be specified in megabytes. Next, you will need to specify the partition letter and tell the system to make it active.

Then we copy all the files and folders from the root directory of the boot DVD (with all attachments, of course), or open the ISO image in any unpacker and do the same with its contents. Now, in case of any serious failure, you can simply reboot and specify an external hard drive in the BIOS settings.

Everything seems to be simple. But in practice, sometimes there is a strange problem that arises for an unknown reason. Namely, none of the disk partitions wants to become active (system), the context menu appears, but this command is not available in it. You can log into the console over and over again for a long time and persistently, and still not achieve anything.

Or you can run the “dispart” utility through the command line and, after doing a few simple operations, still solve the problem. Run the command diskpart4, then list disk and you will see a list of all installed disks. Then - “select disk number” (and the number is the number of the required external screw in the list). Fix your choice with Enter.

Next is the list partition command and selecting a partition on the desired disk with which we will work. To make the selected block active, enter an order... active, of course.

It's been a year since I abandoned the DVD drive, and netbook trends indicate that I made the right decision. But I was faced with the question of how to install an operating system without a DVD. The flash drive died out of place, and when I went to the store to buy a new one, I accidentally caught my eye on the Seagate Expansion external drives, the 250Gb version of which cost literally 500 rubles more than the 8Gb flash drive (2323 rubles). And the size and all of which did not bother the jacket pocket much.

Dimensions:141 x 18 x 80 mm
Weight:0.16kg

But as it turned out, installing Windows 7 from a USB HDD does not work on the same principle as with USB FLASH. Having figured it out and checked its functionality, I’m sharing the information with you.
Works for both Desktop PCs, laptops and Netbooks.

• HDD preparation
• Cutting and preparing HDD partitions;
• Copying Windows 7

HDD preparation

You can make a boot disk, install Windows 7, and then erase it and continue to use the HDD for your needs. Or make it much more convenient:
If you don’t mind 4 gigabytes of space on the External HDD, then the Disk can be cut into two parts, in our case I did just that, giving one part for the Windows 7 distribution kit, which will always be at hand.

Cutting and preparing HDD partitions

1. Go to:
Control Panel - Administration - Computer Management (Disk Management)
Find Disk 1 (if you have several hard drives in your system, find the one that is equal to the size of your External HDD)

2. Select our External HDD drive:
- Right click with the mouse - Delete volume;
- Right click - Create simple volume;
In the window that appears, select the volume size of 4300 Megabytes (Under the Distribution section), and click next,

In the next dialog, if necessary, select the drive letter and click next. In the new dialog, you need to format our new partition (FAT 32), click next and you're done.

After this, you need to make the created section active, for this:
- right click on a section - make the section active.
Now our External HDD looks like this:

Using the same principle, we format the second partition on the disk, preferably in NTFS. but don't make it active.

Copying Windows 7

Copying a Windows distribution to a boot disk has never been easier.

If you have a DVD:
- Simply open your installation DVD, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of your External HDD;

If you have an ISO image:
- Simply open your installation ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of your External HDD;

That's it, your External HDD is ready to act as a Bootable media, just reboot, and in the BIOS Set it as Primary Boot Device. specific External HDD, or simply USB HDD, depending on the BIOS type. Save the changes and proceed to installing your Windows 7.

UPD: For cmd lovers(Thank you )
diskpart

List disk
select disk no.
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick