User Guides Install Windows 7 on a Netbook

Install Windows 7/Vista on a Netbook using USB Pen Drive - Easy as 1-2-3

So, Netbooks are very popular these days. The problem is that Netbooks don’t have Optical Drives (DVD Drives) and so, installation had to be via a USB Pen Drive. I had a 4GB pen drive at hand and also a Windows 7 Installation Disk. So, here’s how I went about it:

Things Required:

1) A USB Pen Drive (4GB or more Capacity)

2) Windows 7/Vista Installation Disk

3) A spare PC with a DVD Drive and USB Port

3) Little knowledge of Command Prompt

So, here is how one goes about it:

1) Connect the USB Pen Drive to an empty USB port on the spare PC. Note the Drive Letter that gets assigned to the USB Pen Drive in My Computer. For me, it is “I”. Also note the Drive letter for the DVD Drive. For me, it is “F”.

2) Go to Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and Right Click on Command Prompt and Select ‘Run As Administrator’.

3) In Command Prompt, type DISKPART and press the <Enter> key. It will look like this:

1+DISKPART.jpg


4) Then type LIST DISK and press <Enter> in the same Command Prompt Window. It will list the Disk Number of your USB Pen Drive. Note this number. For me it was Disk 1. It looks like this:

2+LIST+DISK.jpg


5) Now type and execute the following commands one by one where <Enter> indicates pressing the Enter Key:

SELECT DISK 1 <Enter>

CLEAN <Enter>

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY <Enter>

SELECT PARTITION 1 <Enter>

ACTIVE <Enter>

FORMAT FS=NTFS <Enter> (Wait for format to complete before typing next command)

ASSIGN <Enter>

EXIT <Enter>

It should look like this:

3+EXIT+DISKPART.jpg


Now, Minimise the Command Prompt Window.

6) Now, insert your Windows 7/Vista Installation Disk in the Optical (DVD) Drive. For me, this is Drive “F” as already noted in Step 1.

7) Maximise Command Prompt and type the following:

F: CD BOOT <Enter> (Here, F is my Optical (DVD)Drive Letter)

CD BOOT <Enter>

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 I <Enter> (Here, I is my USB Pen Drive Letter)

It will look like this:

4+CD+BOOT.jpg


Now, one can close Command Prompt.

8) Go to My Computer and Copy-Paste all the contents of the Windows 7/Vista Installation Disk to the USB Pen Drive.

9) The USB Pen Drive is now ready. One can boot from this drive and install Windows on any Netbook that can boot from a USB Pen Drive.

I still had a problem booting from this Pen Drive but that was due to the fact that my Netbook was not configured to boot from a USB Drive. So, I went into the Netbook BIOS, and set the Boot Priority to USB and then installing Windows 7 was a breeze!

I originally wrote this article for my blog on 6th January, 2011. But I couldn't be regular on my blog... :ashamed:

Link for the Blog Post: iDE@ - It's all in the Brain!: Install Windows 7/Vista on a Netbook using USB Pen Drive - Easy as 1-2-3

Today, a query from neojjjk made me post this here.

Query Link: http://www.techenclave.com/laptops/how-to-install-win7-in-netbook-186057.html
 
Click to expand...
^thanks mate, its really informative. I will rep you 2morrow :p

Alternately one can also use windows 7 usb tool, to make a usb drive 7 bootable.
 
i appreciate your effort brother but i have a software called win2flash which directly makes a bootable pendrive by a single click

i hope you dont feel bad just to inform anyone if he may find this little confusing
 
swastikrj said:
i appreciate your effort brother but i have a software called win2flash which directly makes a bootable pendrive by a single click

i hope you dont feel bad just to inform anyone if he may find this little confusing
Click to expand...
I know about it too... But it didn't work for me... I kept getting errors during installation. So, I decided to go old school... :p
 
nehaladsul said:
It is the official tool from Microsoft. But I know a lot of reasons for not using that tool that I cannot mention here on TE... ;)
Click to expand...

I know the reasons ;) and still there are some one-click utilities which does the job.

Sources - askvg, raymondcc, mydigitallife
 
^^yeah, there lots of tool to make flash drive bootable with a single click, but i really appreciate the nehal's work.
Thumbs up to u mate
 
kochukhwa said:
Great'''''''''''''''''''''.........thanks for this...
Hope you'll post more like this in future.....
thanks again...
Click to expand...
Thanx bro... :)

If I find something particularly useful and test it personally, I'll post it here as well.

And it would be for those who dunno and not for those who do know... :D
 
good job, had to do this 2years back when my laptop crashed and my onslot dvd drive as usual was of no use ... this trick came in handy.

however i was in a bigger fix i had all my data on it and did not want to loose and for some reason windows repair function was not fixing it so went through alot of trouble but none the less this trick works 100% i can testify as i have done it the same way.
 
kunallkw said:
good job, had to do this 2years back when my laptop crashed and my onslot dvd drive as usual was of no use ... this trick came in handy.

however i was in a bigger fix i had all my data on it and did not want to loose and for some reason windows repair function was not fixing it so went through alot of trouble but none the less this trick works 100% i can testify as i have done it the same way.
Click to expand...

Yup... It works... And it was the only thing that worked for me... :p
trigger said:
yes, even WinToFlash - Install Windows from usb - Home page didn't work for me.. used Install Windows from USB - MSFN Forum successfully..

Btw.. repped for the efforts..
Click to expand...
WintoFlash didn't work for me either. Good old DOS did the trick!! :lol:

BTW, thanx for the Rep. Just noticed that before your rep I had one green dot but now have 2 green dots!!
 
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