Making just 1 USB partition bootable

[medwatt]

Hello,
I've been trying to create a bootable Win7 for my notebook using my 320GB external hard drive. The problem is I have other files in there too. I made a small (10GB) partition in the 320GB HD and formatted in FAT32. The problem is all the available software around that automate the Win7-USB process format the entire hard drive and not just that 10GB partition which I specified.
I wonder if there is a way to use just the 10GB partition.
Thanks

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not sure I follow all of that, but I don't think Windows will boot from an external drive.

 

[medwatt]

No. I meant creating a Win7 USB bootable disk. All I am asking is given that I have a large USB drive, is it possible to partition that USB drive such that I can put the Win7 installation files in that partition and keep the other partition unformatted ?

 

[gregrocker]

More trouble than it's worth. I'd get a 4gb flash stick or DVD.

Windows 7 USB-DVD Download Tool

 

[ignatzatsonic]

No. I meant creating a Win7 USB bootable disk. All I am asking is given that I have a large USB drive, is it possible to partition that USB drive such that I can put the Win7 installation files in that partition and keep the other partition unformatted ?

I've never owned an external drive. I'd assume they can be partitioned and formatted like any other. And that you could then copy whatever files you wanted to that partition.

BUT, I'm not sure you could then install Windows FROM an external USB hard drive TO an internal, although I know you can from a USB flash drive. I took a quick glance at Google and couldn't find confirmation that you can install from USB external hard drive. What I saw implied you couldn't.

 

[medwatt]

I've already done it before using Win2Flash using my 320GB external HD. I've already stated the problem which I'm trying to avoid. When I use Win2Flash it formats my entire 320GB external HD. Now, I have files in it. So what I'm asking is how to avoid formatting the entire external HD.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Have you tried Diskpart? I'm guessing it will see externals.

 

[SIW2]

Sure. You can use any decent partitioning program. Free Partition Manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard


There is a peculiar windows limitation for usb - you can only see one partition on a usb stick. If you want to see the other one instead, you have to mark it active. ( Linux doesn't have that limitation ).

Another option for usb stick is to keep your existing partition intact, ( with all your files on it ), make sure it has the nt6 bootsector code and mbr code ( easily done with bootice ).

View attachment bootice.zip

If you have an external HD you are already using, create another partition with Aomei or bootice, then just extract the installation media onto it.

If you want to use it as a recovery partition , similar to oems , simply register it with reagentc command.

 

[medwatt]

I already know how to partition a hard drive. The question I am asking here is how to put the contents of the Win7 installation disk in just one partition of an external hard drive. All the software that are available for automating the process will format the partition by default and for some reason the entire hard drive. I don't know why it does so. Thats what I am asking and how to avoid that ?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

How about letting your app format the whole drive and put your files on it. Then shrink the partition and make a second partition out of the "unallocated space". Most partitioning programs can shrink partitions as needed on an internal drive. Not sure if they can do that on an external.

 

[AddRAM]

Yep, just add what you want to the external drive after you put the iso files on it.

 

[medwatt]

How about letting your app format the whole drive and put your files on it. Then shrink the partition and make a second partition out of the "unallocated space". Most partitioning programs can shrink partitions as needed on an internal drive. Not sure if they can do that on an external.

Quite extraordinarily if I format the partition myself it doesn't boot up in bios even when I set it active. So I was finally able to create a Win7 bootable external hard disk. Here's how I did it in case someone cares:
1. My external HD was formatted in NTFS.
2. Using cmd, I made the external HD active
3. Copied Win7 installation files onto the external HD
4. Wrote the bootsector with bootsect.exe
5. Tested the external HD to see whether it was bootable (it was)
6. Using windows disk management utility, i created two partitions on the HD; one just 5GB and the second the rest of the HD space. After that the first partition contained the installation files while the other was empty and I recopied all my files there.
7. Tested the external HD to see if it still boots. It did.

So in conclusion I now own an external HD which contains two partitions; one for installing Win7 and the other containing all my files.

Thanks