Installing Win 7 to SD card (EEE 901) via USB Pendrive


  1. Posts : 4
    Windows 7
       #1

    Installing Win 7 to SD card (EEE 901) via USB Pendrive


    I have tried posting over at the eee forums but i have not had much luck so far so i thought i would try here.

    I have searched on this forum and see some discussion about this. I have a reasonable amount of basic computing knowledge but to be honest most of the more technical stuff i am seeing discussed is probably beyond me.

    I was hoping i could post here in the hopes that someone could explain the steps available to me as clearly and simply as possible, many thanks.

    Anyway, to my post i originally made over on the eee forums:

    -------------------------------------------

    I have a 901/Xp (4gb/8gb), After hearing you can install the OS of your choice onto a SDHC card and boot from it i decided that installing the Win 7 RC would be nice to have as my main OS.

    As i purchased the XP model last year i don't have enough disk space on the slower SSD to install it so i went and purchased a very fast and rather expensive Sandisk Extreme III 30mb/s 16gb SDHC card to have as my new main boot drive for Win 7. The card seems to working fine and i have formatted it to NTFS.

    I was then able to successfully complete a guide to allow me to boot from my 16gb USB pendrive which i had copied the Win 7 disc contents too. I arranged the boot priority to boot from the pendrive and all went well until i got to the drive installation screen, for some reason Win 7 does not see the SDHC card and thus i cannot it install to that location, it sees the hard disks fine but no SD card.

    Strangely it also does not see the USB pendrive either even though i booted from it just fine, could someone point me in the right direction as how to get the Win 7 install to see my SD card so i can install to it?

    SamHandwich

    -------------------------------------------

    That was my full post. Just to add, to be clear, i can boot Win 7 fine off my 16gb USB pendrive with the intention of installing it onto my 16gb SDHC card it just does not see it when i get to the installation.

    I see many people wanting to install OS files to an SD card but then to use that to install to a SSD or hard disk, i see very little about installing the OS onto the SD card itself.

    I guess because most class 6 cards are quite slow which is why i got this high speed 30mb/s card, which hopefully will actually be faster overall than my 4gb SSD drive.

    I see some mention of an Hitachi Microdrive driver to turn a removeable drive into a fixed drive but the one i found seems to be for XP only and when i tried to load the driver at the Win 7 install prompt nothing happened.

    I am beginning to see that i really should have just bought that EEE 1000 HE i had my eye on, good old hindsight.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 147
    Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Build 7268.0.090701-1900
       #2

    Not saying this can't be done, but it is definitely not an M$ tested scenerio. the trouble your going to have is to recognize a USB drive as a suitable destination.

    However, I did a bit of google (ehhem) 'Bing' searching, and found this:

    How To Install Windows 7 On USB Flash Drive

    This method uses VirtualBox, which virtually installs Win7 to a USB-based component. I know your trying to get to an SD card, but the principal should be the same, since SD is USB-dependant.

    Let us know how this goes, or if I'm way off base.

    Thanks,
    Daniel
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 4
    Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       #3

    antalgebra said:
    Not saying this can't be done, but it is definitely not an M$ tested scenerio. the trouble your going to have is to recognize a USB drive as a suitable destination.

    However, I did a bit of google (ehhem) 'Bing' searching, and found this:

    How To Install Windows 7 On USB Flash Drive

    This method uses VirtualBox, which virtually installs Win7 to a USB-based component. I know your trying to get to an SD card, but the principal should be the same, since SD is USB-dependant.

    Let us know how this goes, or if I'm way off base.

    Thanks,
    Daniel
    Thanks for responding. I was all set to try this but my NIS 2009 reports a virus inside the install package as it was extracting to my SD card.

    I downloaded the file from the site the guide points too, it appears to be a legitimate site where many others have downloaded it also, there also appears to be no mention of this happening for others when i google the search.

    The file i downloaded was:

    http://www.vbox.me/?path=./VirtualBo....1.0-Win32.exe

    Upon extraction to my SD card NIS 2009 reported the following:

    Risk Name: Suspicious.MH690.A
    Risk Type: Heuristic Virus
    Rick Level: High

    A heuristic virus detection is a detection of a potential threat that has been detected by one or more proactive technologies, such as Bloodhound or SONAR.

    Upon extraction, the infected file was reported to have been:

    f:\portable-virtualbox-win32\app32\vboxnetdhcp.exe

    Norton "Fully removed" the "threat", and deleted the file.

    Now, Norton insisted this threat level was high yet the Norton site reports this virus as a "Very Low" risk level at:

    Suspicious.MH690.A Technical Details | Symantec

    I have the very latest definitions. Now my guess is as there is no mention of this with google that this is a either a very new "threat" or that my Norton is getting a little carried away with it's assessment of this "threat" and is providing a false positive on the virus.

    I have sent the report to Symantec, but in the meantime could you guys check that download out and see what your AV, (Norton especially), is telling you.

    My instinct tells me this is probably a false positive but until i know more i am extremely reluctant to proceed with the install as to do so i would imagine i would have to disable Norton as it will delete that file every time.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 184
    Windows 7 Build 7229 x64
       #4

    Avast doesn't pick up anything.

    I would just disable Norton, re-download it, then re-start Norton when you're done.


    Edit: I would scan with Malwarebytes, but the context menu option is't working on x64 until they do another update and there doesn't seem to be a setting in it's UI to scan a specific file/location.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 147
    Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Build 7268.0.090701-1900
       #5

    SamHandwich said:
    Thanks for responding. I was all set to try this but my NIS 2009 reports a virus inside the install package as it was extracting to my SD card.

    I downloaded the file from the site the guide points too, it appears to be a legitimate site where many others have downloaded it also, there also appears to be no mention of this happening for others when i google the search.

    The file i downloaded was:

    http://www.vbox.me/?path=./VirtualBo....1.0-Win32.exe

    Upon extraction to my SD card NIS 2009 reported the following:

    Risk Name: Suspicious.MH690.A
    Risk Type: Heuristic Virus
    Rick Level: High

    A heuristic virus detection is a detection of a potential threat that has been detected by one or more proactive technologies, such as Bloodhound or SONAR.

    Upon extraction, the infected file was reported to have been:

    f:\portable-virtualbox-win32\app32\vboxnetdhcp.exe

    Norton "Fully removed" the "threat", and deleted the file.

    Now, Norton insisted this threat level was high yet the Norton site reports this virus as a "Very Low" risk level at:

    Suspicious.MH690.A Technical Details | Symantec

    I have the very latest definitions. Now my guess is as there is no mention of this with google that this is a either a very new "threat" or that my Norton is getting a little carried away with it's assessment of this "threat" and is providing a false positive on the virus.

    I have sent the report to Symantec, but in the meantime could you guys check that download out and see what your AV, (Norton especially), is telling you.

    My instinct tells me this is probably a false positive but until i know more i am extremely reluctant to proceed with the install as to do so i would imagine i would have to disable Norton as it will delete that file every time.

    Sorry about that,

    thinking about it, probably not the best idea to download the program from them, that version of the program looks to be stored in Montenegro. although the prinicpal should be valid, perhaps try to get it elsewhere, (torrent?)
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 4
    Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       #6

    I haven't got around to trying Virtualbox again as i have been distracted trying to get the drive set to fixed.

    I managed to use the Hitachi Microdrive filter driver and replaced the hardware ID string from my SD reader and sure enough after rebooting it saw the card as a local disk.

    I then launched the Win 7 installer off my usb stick and my eyes lit up when i saw the SD card listed alongside my internal ssd's.

    However upon trying to install to the card itself i got the message that windows cannot be installed to disks connected through a USB or IEEE 1394 port.

    So basically it now seems that the hitachi microdrive driver has turned my USB based SD card reader into being seen as an external USB Harddrive.

    Not quite the fixed disk i was hoping for but at least the installation sees the drive now.

    I am now in the same position as someone trying to install Windows 7 from either a DVD drive / USB pendrive onto an EXTERNAL USB hard drive. Is there any existing workaround to get Windows 7 to install in that scenario?
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 147
    Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Build 7268.0.090701-1900
       #7

    SamHandwich said:
    I haven't got around to trying Virtualbox again as i have been distracted trying to get the drive set to fixed.

    I managed to use the Hitachi Microdrive filter driver and replaced the hardware ID string from my SD reader and sure enough after rebooting it saw the card as a local disk.

    I then launched the Win 7 installer off my usb stick and my eyes lit up when i saw the SD card listed alongside my internal ssd's.

    However upon trying to install to the card itself i got the message that windows cannot be installed to disks connected through a USB or IEEE 1394 port.

    So basically it now seems that the hitachi microdrive driver has turned my USB based SD card reader into being seen as an external USB Harddrive.

    Not quite the fixed disk i was hoping for but at least the installation sees the drive now.

    I am now in the same position as someone trying to install Windows 7 from either a DVD drive / USB pendrive onto an EXTERNAL USB hard drive. Is there any existing workaround to get Windows 7 to install in that scenario?

    You are on the right track, afaik, this has not yet been done at all with anything using the new filesystem. In part, specifically blocked by M$ in design to battle piracy. (amongst other things I wont discuss here)

    Here's something I found (not the OS you were looking for, but is a design concept)

    Ngine.de - How to install and run a FULL Windows XP from a USB drive
      My Computer


 

  Related Discussions
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

© Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 16:33.
Find Us