How to install windows 7 to usb external hard drive

Awesome! I will try it out.

Well it seems like the IT gremlins got in the machine and won't allow boot off USB storage device when I select that option!.The install went fine then I rebooted to continue as instructed. When I Do F12 and select "USB" it goes to PXE boot trying to boot off the network. It fails and keeps retrying. I tried it twice same thing! I have a latitude E5420. :-(

I went into BIOS and disabled PXE boot option. Now it boots to the USB (Tries). The activity light on the USB just flashes forever nothing happens nada. Arrgggh. Will start over and do it again. I have a suspicion about this Toshiba Canvio 1TB. Saw some bad comments about it, may be taking a return trip back to RadShak!

Curious.

You might want to pop an entry on your current win7 boot menu - at least till you have got the thing on the usb hd to complete installation.

You can easily remove the extra boot menu entry at any time.

No biggie.

Well I ran the fixusb command file. I rebooted to the USB ans it still just flashes the activity light along with blank screen ( only a flashing cursor ). I'm inexperienced at the Win 7 boot menu tweak you mentioned. My thought is to start over from scratch. I guess I'd need to quick format the usb drive E active partition first. Thank You.

I tried startingover from scratch erasing the active partition on Drive E: USB. It still just flashes and blinkingcursorss before. I'm stumped.

OK - I will post you an adjusted version - that should allow enough time for windows to poll.

If it still doesn't work , then I am out of answers. It works fine here.

Give the new one a try.

I exchanged the Canvio Ext USB for a WD 500MB ext USB drive since I was suspicious of it, plus it was slow. I created an active partition on the USB as I did before. I performed the whole WAIK process as before. However this time I noticed that during the end of the "RUN-ME-AS-ADMIN.CMD" (which was substituted for the "Installer.cmd") I get an error. After the "wim file applied" I get error: "set_usb_boot.cmd" is not recognized as an internal or external command. When I boot to the USB there is error "Invalid partition table".

So long ago now, I can't remember anything about it.

If set_usb_cmd did not run, then do it manually.

at command prompt <pathto set_usb_boot.cmd> installdriveletter:\windows

e.g. if set_usb_boot.cmd is directly on c:\ and your install usb drive letter is d

c:\set_usb_boot.cmd d:\windows

set_usb_boot.zip

Yes it has been a while.. Thanks.
I executed the set_usb_boot.cmd on E:\windows in my case and it processed normally. I tried to boot to the USB and I get the same message "Invalid partition table". I can browse to E: with explorer and windows (7) with all the usual folders are there. This is frustrating i'm doing all the right stuff. If I can't ultimately get Win 7 to boot I'll install a Ubuntu boot to USB on it. My desire was to get dual boot Win 7 and Ubuntu on this external USB.