How to boot the setup of Windows 7 from another drive/partition?

I want to reinstall Windows 7 Home Prem x64 on my C drive by wiping it out and formatting/deleting the partition. My D drive has files on it and I do not want to touch it. Can I somehow make the setup run from the D drive?

Install Windows 7 Directly From Hard Drive

I have ISO, I have my key, I do NOT have USB or DVD (and by saying so don't have time to buy or look for USB flash dirves), heh all google results point to these two ways that even my granny can do...

Tried the above link, Daemon Tools mount, copied the files, I do not even have Boot folder in C:\ but anyway copied files from ISO, Windows started normally - it's like only 1/2 the instructions, nothing sugggests it would boot anyway. When I had USB stick in the past it started Win 7 setup ofc, but now?

You are asking us if it can be done, and it can. But it isn't correct. You always need a bootable installer to do the job right, and if necessary for repairs. DVD's are 5 for $2 on the rack at Walgreens, flash sticks are $5 with free shipping on buy.com

You should also have your files backed up externally at all times, if necessary even to the cloud using a free solution like Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with Skydrive - Windows 7 Forums .

The steps are the same as here to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Daemon Tools has never been compatible with Win7.

To do what you want, use 7Zip or Power ISO to extract the ISO files to D, then run Setup to overwrite C. If you're able to choose C as the target location during install, it should work. If not you risk your files on D so do it correctly with a disk.

gregrocker said:

You are asking us if it can be done, and it can. But it isn't correct. You always need a bootable installer to do the job right, and if necessary for repairs. DVD's are 5 for $2 on the rack at Walgreens, flash sticks are $5 with free shipping on buy.com

You should also have your files backed up externally at all times, if necessary even to the cloud using a free solution like Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with Skydrive - Windows 7 Forums .

The steps are the same as here to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Daemon Tools has never been compatible with Win7.

To do what you want, use 7Zip or Power ISO to extract the ISO files to D, then run Setup to overwrite C. If you're able to choose C as the target location during install, it should work. If not you risk your files on D so do it correctly with a disk.

I asked about that and specially noted, I didn't have the time to go to any stores to do that... it's not about the money, I needed to do that ASAP, on the minute.

Daemon Toos LITE, I use it since years ago to mount images, all these procedures only require copying the setup files from the ISO, so it works just fine with Win 7...

Anyway, since one guy was willing to let me borrow his USB stick, I did it with that... but it is good to know in general if I can use another partition of the HDD for that.

Especially since I was asking if I can boot from a partition containing other files and applications - would they be damaged in the process of turning the partition into a bootable installation partition.

It isn't a bootable installation partition so much as you are actually installing from Win7 on C over itself. It remains live until the files are copied and expanded from D and reboots into the new C install to complete itself. For this reason it may prompt you for more space to be made on C to do all the unzipping.

Everything pre-existing on C is also stuffed into a Windows.old folder where it can remain until you're sure you have everything out of it you need, then delete it. Drivers can be browsed from Windows>System32 from Device Manager.

??

I am talking about CLEAN installation, meaning similar to how you do it from USB - you have the setup files there on the USB stick, boot from USB, enter setup, format your C: drive or delete the partition and install Win 7 on the fresh newly made C: drive. And how to do that from D: say if I wanted to do the same but instead of booting from USB to boot from D: and whether booting from D: will cause damage to other files and applications that are there... (since my D: is not an empty drive made only for installation but a functioning drive with applications and files)

I just told you that you can run the extracted ISO Setup file as Admin from D partition, to reinstall over C. I also told you exactly how it works.

If you want a booted install so you can delete and/or format the C or other partitions, you'll need to boot from a DVD or Flash stick. Making another partition bootable to do a Clean Reinstall is too much trouble.