How to create a recovery partition for a blank HD

medwatt said:

I am myself a little bit confused in presenting what I want done.
Ok once more.
1. I want to install win 7 on a blank HDD which has no DVD drive
2. I already have a 1.5TB HDD which is semi full formatted as NTFS
3. I already have an ISO image of win 7
4. How to make the 1.5TB HDD a win 7 bootable installation disk without formatting it (1.e. retaining all files)

If you use this method Install OS from Hard Drive to install to another HD, it will work but it will configure it as a Dual Boot with the Win7 on the 1.5tb HD. So it's best to install from a bootable flash stick written with UltraISO Software To Create Bootable USB Flash Drive with all other HD's unplugged unless you want a Windows Dual Boot menu - actually it will be a triple boot with the bootable installer also on the menu until you delete it.

There's not really even a way to repair it so the new install becomes bootable on its own without removing the 1.5tb, because if you mark the target HD Active and then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times from the bootable HD partition installer it will only move the Dual Boot to the new HD and not be able to separate the two of them until one is unplugged.

If you want to try this as an experiment and don't want the Dual Boot then before installing to the target HDD, open the installer's System Recovery Options to use its Command Prompt to preformat a Primary Active partition on the target HD, using Step 2.2 from SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation. After intsall see where the System flag lands since two Active OS partitions will be vying for it. Let us know what you find out. We can probably come up with the commands to separate them.

whs said:

I assume we are talking about the disk with partition L. On that you have 390GB free space. You could split off a partition of 50 or 100GB (or more) to where you can install the OS.

Important

1. For splitting use this program because disk manmagement won't do it (the MFT is in the way)

Free Partition Magic alternative, partition manager freeware, partition magic server, partition magic Windows 7 and free Partition Manager software for Windows 7/8/VISTA/XP/2000 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2000.

Here is a tutorial on how to do it

How to split partition with partition magic ? Partition Wizard video help.

2. Install the OS into this new partition.

During the installation you have to disconnect Disk0 and Disk2 - else your bootmgr will land on one of those (most likely on Disk0 and then you have a double boot situation)
If you want to boot from the new OS, change the boot seqience in the BIOS (F12 during boot - ESC for HP PCs).

Interesting because I have already done so in the past but I never disabled the other partitions and so was never able to boot from that disk !! Now I know why !