Windows 7 - Boot from ISO without Burning to Disk

**severedsolo**

How to Make Windows Boot Manager Boot an ISO from your Hard Drive

Warning

This method will only work assuming your Windows Boot Manager is in tact, if it is corrupted then the ISO will be unbootable

Note

According to the EasyBCD Forums this will not boot a Windows 7/Vista ISO image that you have created from your disk/recovery partition to do that see: Recovery Partition - Create

Note

known working ISO's
Memtest X86
Windows XP
Partition Wizard

If you test with different ISO's and find they work please leave a comment so i can update this list

Ok lets get started, for this example i will add Memtest X86 to the boot menu

1. Move your ISO to the root file of your hard drive (for instance C: otherwise it may not be able to read the ISO path

2. Download EasyBCD from here: EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums make sure you get the latest build, (you will need to register on the forum first)

3. Install Easy BCD and then run it

4. Click External Devices, then ISOboot

5. Browse to the path of the ISO Image you wish to add

6. Give it a name, in my case im going to call it Memtest then click Create Entry

and thats it, next time you boot you will have the option of booting to your ISO, it saves your blank disks, and as long as your hard drive doesnt fail, or your windows boot manager, you can boot from it as many times as you want.

Information

This tutorial is the intellectual property of (c)2009 Martin Joy a.k.a severedsolo and is only authorised to be hosted on sevenforums.com This tutorial is not to be copied without my explicit consent and when consent is granted the original author must be credited along with a link to this tutorial

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**myzr7** · 03-13-2010

Nice one, I plan to try this on my test machine. Thanks for the tut!

**severedsolo** · 03-13-2010

let me know how you get on, iv only tested it with XP and Memtest so would be interested to see what else it works with

**myzr7** · 03-13-2010

Quote: Originally Posted by severedsolo

let me know how you get on, iv only tested it with XP and Memtest so would be interested to see what else it works with

ed solo
Alrighty then. Just added Partition Wizard to my boot menu. Worked just like I was booting from disc. I tested functionality by shrinking a 100 GB partition and creating and formating new partition. All good. Last test will be to change boot menu back to just Windows 7 like it was before testing. This tut may have just made my must have for new 7 installs

**gramdmajim** · 03-13-2010

nice............i will have to try this out.

**severedsolo** · 03-13-2010

Quote: Originally Posted by myzr7

Quote: Originally Posted by severedsolo

let me know how you get on, iv only tested it with XP and Memtest so would be interested to see what else it works with

ed solo
Alrighty then. Just added Partition Wizard to my boot menu. Worked just like I was booting from disc. I tested functionality by shrinking a 100 GB partition and creating and formating new partition. All good. Last test will be to change boot menu back to just Windows 7 like it was before testing. This tut may have just made my must have for new 7 installs

thats easily done by just using the remove entry function in Easy, with no other OS it should default back to the original setup

Word of warning, Delete the boot entry BEFORE moving the ISO away from the root folder/deleting it or Easy will get confused and not be able to remove the entry

Have updated the tut to include a list of confirmed working ISO's

**Zeppelyn56** · 05-31-2011

I notice there has'nt been a reply to this for quite a while, I use this method on a old spare 10gb HD as a boot backup which also includes Acronis True Image, Acronis Disk Director, Todo Backup, Win PE, MS Dart 6.5 and ERD Commander.

**niceguy75** · 09-13-2011

Ok I tried with Acronis True Image ISO and worked perfectly. A dumb question can we install windows using this method, lol?

**severedsolo** · 09-22-2011

Quote: Originally Posted by niceguy75

Ok I tried with Acronis True Image ISO and worked perfectly. A dumb question can we install windows using this method, lol?

Unfortunately not, for that you want: Recovery Partition - Create

Thanks for the heads up about Acronis, I'm assuming that was TI2011?

**niceguy75** · 09-23-2011

Quote: Originally Posted by severedsolo

Quote: Originally Posted by niceguy75

Ok I tried with Acronis True Image ISO and worked perfectly. A dumb question can we install windows using this method, lol?

Unfortunately not, for that you want: Recovery Partition - Create

Thanks for the heads up about Acronis, I'm assuming that was TI2011?

Thanks for reply............
I thought so, but just out of curiosity I asked.
And about ATI, I tried with 2012.

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