trying to make an external hard drive bootable

Hello.

I'm trying to make an external hard drive bootable without losing any data that's already stored on it, if possible and use it to install Windows 7 on my computer, I'm currently running XP. Thanks!

What, no one knows how?

Yeah, this looks rather helpful and up to date.

Don't want to be an asshole I'm just really tired, I've been searching for a solution for hours. Tried installing Win7 from a CD but an error occured everytime. Then I find out it's most likely the DVD or the DVD Recorder. So I google some more and find out I need a way I can make an external Hard Drive bootable without losing any data on it, then copying (I suppose) the setup files from the CD and maybe, just maybe, then I'll finally install W7 on my computer. *sigh*

P.S. Love that Stephen King quote. =)

Will doing this make me lose data on my external drive?

So you want to install win7 on your harddisk in your pc? Why don't you install from dvd?

Do you have an installation dvd or iso-file?
Installing Windows 7 From a USB Stick From Windows XP works for sure. But be sure to select the right disk when entering "select disk". And the same for "select partitïon".
You wanna keep all files already on external drive, so first shrink the partition on usb and create a new ntfs partition in the free space. But you can't shrink a partition with standaard winxp. So install free Best Free Partition Manager Freeware for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.
It can shrink the partition (called resize partition) and create a ntfs partition. You can also make it active.

So if you use this tool ... diskpart isn't needed!

Oxydo said:

Yeah, this looks rather helpful and up to date.

Don't want to be an asshole I'm just really tired, I've been searching for a solution for hours. Tried installing Win7 from a CD but an error occured everytime. Then I find out it's most likely the DVD or the DVD Recorder. So I google some more and find out I need a way I can make an external Hard Drive bootable without losing any data on it, then copying (I suppose) the setup files from the CD and maybe, just maybe, then I'll finally install W7 on my computer. *sigh*

P.S. Love that Stephen King quote. =)

If the DVD is unreadable or has errors ... making a copy give you read errors as well. Same goes for a not working dvd drive.

Did you make the dvd from an iso? If so is that still on pc? If so simply use the iso instead of dvd

Btw do you want winxp and win7 to dual boot?
Or you want win7 to replace winxp?

First of all, thank you! Finally somebody willing to help unlike Magus up there.

I couldn't install from the dvd because I kept getting Error code: 0x80070017. I have another question now that I tried the diskpart solution. I couldn't copy a certain file named install.wim (it said something about cyclic redundancy check). Do you know why is that?

Edit: I want Win7 to replace XP. I haven't got the iso, just the cd.