Error booting from external hard drive

Wimb · 05 Jan 2010

Hello,

I am trying to wipe my current XP installation clean and move on to Windows 7.

I first tried to install the setup.exe (Custom install option of course) from within the XP OS, but soon discovered you cannot do that and wipe out my only partition on C: at the same time.

I don't have a DVD-RW drive to write a boot disk, so instead I am trying to install through my external hard drive. I meticulously followed this tutorial from PC World yet when I instruct the PC in BIOS to boot from the external hard drive, I keep getting an "invalid system disk, press any key" error when the computer boots and looks for the setup files. This is despite the fact that setup seems to work perfectly from within the XP OS.

PC World tutorial:
Install Windows 7 From an External Hard Drive - PC World

Wimb · 18 Jan 2010

For any others who may be experiencing similar difficulty, the solution for me was simple.

With the external hard drive connected, I found that if I started the setup by double-clicking the exe in the external hard drive, then 7 setup recognized the external hard drive as its own partition and from there I was able to install 7 on the C partition.

7 then created a Windows.old folder I had to delete afterwards.

Now everything works great!

derekimo · 18 Jan 2010

Thanks for sharing your solution Wimb, That will help someone else in the future.:)

moeaz05 · 25 Apr 2010

I guess i was the chosen lol

this helped so much!!!!!1

Error booting from external hard drive

Error booting from external hard drive

Thkssssssssssssss