Formating WHOLE 8GB SD CARD?? how?

zapp22 said:

Done! now what?
the HP formatter did the trick, all 79@### bytes...

so... do I just simply copy the iso on there and give it a shot? guess so -

I simulated your conditions on my 8GB pendrive - one 4 GB NTFS and the rest orphaned :) - and tried HP formatter and it formatted the whole 8GB. So I knew that it should work with the SD card too. Thanks for confirming. ( I was just getting my stuff ready to do it on a 8GB SD card and by that time you confirmed.)

Regarding putting the Win7 ISO, well, I have not tried it on an SD card. I had actually used the Microsoft tool and the pendrive and not sure whether it will recognise the SD card and write it on to it. You have to try.

I know that one can also use the Universal Installer http://www.pendrivelinux.com/univers...easy-as-1-2-3/ can write the ISO to a pendrive but on an SD, well, again you have to try.

But I presume that it should do it on the SD card too.(Past midnight here. hitting the sack.)

The first thing in the morning, I tried writing the Windows 7 Installation ISO on to the 8GB SD card using Windows 7 USB DVD download tool Microsoft Store Online and it was successful. I also booted into it.





You may mark this thread as solved unless you have further queries. :)

excellent and instructive!
so, the end of it was thusly:
- ran the HP util and it did as you say, reformatting the whole 8gb SD card [which was sitting in a Targus USB mount]
- copied the .iso to the drive
- attempted to force the x120e to boot frm that device
- failed. it tried gamely, but failed, returning to the "gimme a valid bootable" menu
- after previous fails, I thought... maybe the hp thingy did some good in other ways, and tried one last shot at the Microsoft utility for making things bootable/installable for Win7. This time: SUCCESS! - took a really long time but redid everything with the .iso file to make the drive do its job
- reboot, pointed to the device, and successful install.

Activated and now doing 4 million win7 updates.... sheeesh.

for the record, to help future searchers: a friend tells me that there IS a way to boot from the included SD slot on the thinkpad x120e - I tried and failed, punted to USB instead, but he succeeded. My guess is that a later BIOS flash enabled that to work properly.

not a bad little notebook, by the way. I bought 6 months old, still under warranty, for 300 bucks and in good condition otherwise.

jumanji said:

zapp22 said:

Done! now what?
the HP formatter did the trick, all 79@### bytes...

so... do I just simply copy the iso on there and give it a shot? guess so -

I simulated your conditions on my 8GB pendrive - one 4 GB NTFS and the rest orphaned :) - and tried HP formatter and it formatted the whole 8GB. So I knew that it should work with the SD card too. Thanks for confirming. ( I was just getting my stuff ready to do it on a 8GB SD card and by that time you confirmed.)

Regarding putting the Win7 ISO, well, I have not tried it on an SD card. I had actually used the Microsoft tool and the pendrive and not sure whether it will recognise the SD card and write it on to it. You have to try.

I know that one can also use the Universal Installer Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3 | USB Pen Drive Linux can write the ISO to a pendrive but on an SD, well, again you have to try.

But I presume that it should do it on the SD card too.(Past midnight here. hitting the sack.)

One reason why I am loathe to see the end of my XP system is having Partition Magic on it which can cope with most of the partitioning I ever required and on the system itself - never had it fail on me personally. Often still use it when W7 will not do what is required and I do have EASUS Partition Master free edition on the W7 system. :)

EASEUS Partition Master is a great product, very similar to Partition Wizard actually. As for Partition Magic that's outdated and doesn't support Windows 7 properly, I believe...might want to think about just getting rid of it. Besides, I can't imagine PMagic doing anything that PWizard can't...

Corazon said:

EASEUS Partition Master is a great product, very similar to Partition Wizard actually. As for Partition Magic that's outdated and doesn't support Windows 7 properly, I believe...might want to think about just getting rid of it. Besides, I can't imagine PMagic doing anything that PWizard can't...

Partition Magic is on my XP system and I've never tried to install it on this system. Since I paid for it I can't see getting rid of it will soothe my slight annoyance - not the only program I have had to rethink for solutions since moving to W7.

as it turned out, I used Easeus to get rid of the old partition and make one big 8gb one. tried the HP tool [didn't kill my drive :)] but system wouldn't boot it ...dunno why.
but, oddly enough, once I had used the HP flash utility, then the MS Windows 7 flash boot utility worked like a charm. stuck it in the slot in the thinkpad and 'voila''! win7 home premium freshly installed

In the case of the HP tool, there is a misconception that it can be used only for pendrives.

Any formatting tool, has to be used with caution. One has to check and double check that he is formatting the right drive/partition, lest he ends up in misery.

And an elementary rule when one formats an external drive is to make sure that no other external drive is connected. Not very difficult, I presume :)