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Boot windows installation within a partition?

RandelA

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Hello guys.. It is possible to boot windows setup using a single disk (4GB flash drive).. so now I am thinking how to do it on a 160GB HDD? I still use mg 160GB for school projects, which is really not big of a space in the drive..
My plan is:
To have 3 partitions in the hard drive
- Windows 7 x64 installation
- Windows 8 x64 installation
- and the rest goes to my school files

Now, I don't know much about booting, but all I know is you CAN boot a drive, but not sure if you can boot a partition.
That's what I'm asking :D Is is possible?? How?
 
D

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create a partition the size you want during the 7 install and install 8 on the other partition...when you boot you will have the option to boot to whatever OS you want to boot to....

More specific directions...
During windows 7 install...When on the Hard Drive Selection screen click on DRIVE OPTIONS, the n Click on NEW and the set in megabytes the size of the partition you want to create...for 3 partitions you will need to that twice...with a 160gb hdd I'd say you should set each drive to about 50,000 megabytes each.
 
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for boot disks there is nothing better than SARDU

"SARDU creates a multiboot USB drive, a multiboot DVD or CD (all-in-one) for free (personal and non commercial use, read the license). Hard disks (internal and external), SSD, USB flash drive and all removable memory disk and media are supported.
The multi bootable device can include comprehensive collections of antivirus rescue CD, utilities and popular Linux live distributions. Windows PE can also be included, as well as recovery disks and install media for Windows XP (Professional, Home and 64 Bit), Windows Vista, Windows Seven and Windows Eight."

i have every version of windows, all my repair boot disks and a few linux distros all bootable from one hard drive. just make a fat 32 partition at the start of your usb drive and call it SARDU the program will do the rest.
 

RandelA

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for boot disks there is nothing better than SARDU

"SARDU creates a multiboot USB drive, a multiboot DVD or CD (all-in-one) for free (personal and non commercial use, read the license). Hard disks (internal and external), SSD, USB flash drive and all removable memory disk and media are supported.
The multi bootable device can include comprehensive collections of antivirus rescue CD, utilities and popular Linux live distributions. Windows PE can also be included, as well as recovery disks and install media for Windows XP (Professional, Home and 64 Bit), Windows Vista, Windows Seven and Windows Eight."

i have every version of windows, all my repair boot disks and a few linux distros all bootable from one hard drive. just make a fat 32 partition at the start of your usb drive and call it SARDU the program will do the rest.

You mean with one hard disk drive, I can put in dozens of partition, including windows 7 setup and windows 8 setup, and if I try to boot it, the computer will read it as another bootable device?
 
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So let me get this
You want install win7 and win8 on the 160 gig drive or just use your Seagate 500 gig drive ?Or both? The way have my dual boot is, I have 8 on my primary boot drive in the mobo bios.I usually just disconnected the other drives and leave the drive i want to install as my os .Then i hit my F8 key at boot to bring up which drive i want to boot too.Say i want to go to 7 i hit F8 select the drive that has 7 and it boots.

For you I would copy the stuff off the 160 to the 500 gig .Then format the drive.When installing 8 or 7 on it use the option to manage drive sizes and set 2 50 gigs on the 160gig ,Make them boot able also.It is WD drive so does WD have something like Drive image like Seagate has? Oh they do ......Get the one to boot off cd ......http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119 Use that to set up your WD drive for 50 gig each boot tables. Just have the Seagate disconnected from the SATA port on the mobo.

PS dont forget 7/8 has the 3gig boot tables hidden on the installing drive. so for 160gig 50 gigs for OS installs and the left over 10 gigs (5 gigs each partition) goes to the hidden install files.
 
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RandelA

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create a partition the size you want during the 7 install and install 8 on the other partition...when you boot you will have the option to boot to whatever OS you want to boot to....

More specific directions...
During windows 7 install...When on the Hard Drive Selection screen click on DRIVE OPTIONS, the n Click on NEW and the set in megabytes the size of the partition you want to create...for 3 partitions you will need to that twice...with a 160gb hdd I'd say you should set each drive to about 50,000 megabytes each.

Not what I was looking for, but thanks! I didn't know that there would be a menu to choose an OS while booting.. probably because I didn't try it :roll: thanks for the info, mate! Might do it on my UEFI Laptop since I only had Windows 8 installed in it (and it's not bad at all, I just like Windows 7 more)
 

RandelA

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So let me get this
You want install win7 and win8 on the 160 gig drive or just use your Seagate 500 gig drive ?Or both? The way have my dual boot is, I have 8 on my primary boot drive in the mobo bios.I usually just disconnected the other drives and leave the drive i want to install as my os .Then i hit my F8 key at boot to bring up which drive i want to boot too.Say i want to go to 7 i hit F8 select the drive that has 7 and it boots.

For you I would copy the stuff off the 160 to the 500 gig .Then format the drive.When installing 8 or 7 on it use the option to manage drive sizes and set 2 50 gigs on the 160gig ,Make them boot able also.It is WD drive so does WD have something like Drive image like Seagate has? Oh they do ......Get the one to boot off cd ......http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119 Use that to set up your WD drive for 50 gig each boot tables. Just have the Seagate disconnected from the SATA port on the mobo.

PS dont forget 7/8 has the 3gig boot tables hidden on the installing drive. so for 160gig 50 gigs for OS installs and the left over 10 gigs (5 gigs each partition) goes to the hidden install files.

Sorry but I was hoping for a hard disk with all the OS I want and then make a partition for each OS Setup, then when booting, I would like to choose which OS to install on a computer :)
 
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Sorry but I was hoping for a hard disk with all the OS I want and then make a partition for each OS Setup, then when booting, I would like to choose which OS to install on a computer :)

Yep that is easy to do,


Just make sure you install Windows 7 before windows 8 as this will make life a lot easier due to the way boot loader works and leave enough space for each Install when formatting the HDD... Windows 7 I would use around 30-35GB and windows 8 I would leave 50GB.

Or you could just split the drive into two 70GB partitions, one for each OS.
 

RandelA

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Yep that is easy to do,


Just make sure you install Windows 7 before windows 8 as this will make life a lot easier due to the way boot loader works and leave enough space for each Install when formatting the HDD... Windows 7 I would use around 30-35GB and windows 8 I would leave 50GB.

Or you could just split the drive into two 70GB partitions, one for each OS.

Oh man.. How do I explain this :(
Here's what I have:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 DVD
Windows 8 Pro x64 ISO copy (from dreamspark)

Here's what I could do:
Create partition for Win7 setup (4GB only, since Setup is 3.8GB)
Create partition for Win8 setup (4GB as well)
Remaining space will be left for my school files.

Objectives:
To plug external HDD to the PC
To start the PC
To choose which of the two partitions(win7 setup or win8 setup) to boot
To successfully install preferred OS

I wish I got it explained right this time.. :/ sorry guys

Edit:
I will copy Windows 7 and Windows 8 SETUP on separate partitions for each Setup on my external HDD, and then when I boot my external HDD, I wish it to have a menu or something that would allow me to choose which windows I would like to install on the current PC
 
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You mean with one hard disk drive, I can put in dozens of partition, including windows 7 setup and windows 8 setup, and if I try to boot it, the computer will read it as another bootable device?

No you add all your iso files intO the Sardu ISO folder and rename them so that Sardu knows what one is what. Then It will install everything to a single fat 32 partition so when you boot from it it gives you a menu and you just pick what setup you want to run.
 

RandelA

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No you add all your iso files intO the Sardu ISO folder and rename them so that Sardu knows what one is what. Then It will install everything to a single fat 32 partition so when you boot from it it gives you a menu and you just pick what setup you want to run.

Okay.. so sardu also goes into the fat32 partition? Because when I click "search USB" it doesn't show anything, it says "if usb is not plugged then plug it now" pop-up dialog.
 
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Oh man.. How do I explain this :(
Here's what I have:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 DVD
Windows 8 Pro x64 ISO copy (from dreamspark)

Here's what I could do:
Create partition for Win7 setup (4GB only, since Setup is 3.8GB)
Create partition for Win8 setup (4GB as well)
Remaining space will be left for my school files.

Objectives:
To plug external HDD to the PC
To start the PC
To choose which of the two partitions(win7 setup or win8 setup) to boot
To successfully install preferred OS

I wish I got it explained right this time.. :/ sorry guys

Edit:
I will copy Windows 7 and Windows 8 SETUP on separate partitions for each Setup on my external HDD, and then when I boot my external HDD, I wish it to have a menu or something that would allow me to choose which windows I would like to install on the current PC


Damnit, I knew thats what you wanted with your first post! I deleted my post because JMCSLOB confused me lol.


Hm, if you Follow this guide (Replace words "flash driive" with 160GB hard drive) http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Bootable-Windows-7-or-Vista-USB-Drive for both partitions and then to do a dummy install of windows 8 on the last part of the HDD it should give you the option to boot Windows 7/8 Installer or boot into windows 8.
Edit: On step 4 you will want to make sure you size the partition correctly... or you can use the windows gui tool in control panel.


Once you get that far you can just delete windows 8 from the boot menu using MSCONFIG and delete the partition.
 
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He's asking how to use a HDD as an ISO in a way where he could plug the HDD into a dock and boot to it and pick win7 or win8 to install as if he put the dvd into a dvd drive...

The only thing I can think of doing is making a Windows mini installation so he could then pick whatever ISO he wants to install from there.

Possibly a DOS ISO launcher?
Like a small DOS partition and then mount the ISO in DOS and launch...not sure if anything like it exists tho..
 
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He's asking how to use a HDD as an ISO in a way where he could plug the HDD into a dock and boot to it and pick win7 or win8 to install as if he put the dvd into a dvd drive...

The only thing I can think of doing is making a Windows mini installation so he could then pick whatever ISO he wants to install from there.

Possibly a DOS ISO launcher?
Like a small DOS partition and then mount the ISO in DOS and launch...not sure if anything like it exists tho..



Yeah it works exactly the same way as you would do it with a flash drive. Just extract the files and make the device boot-able.
 

RandelA

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Yeah it works exactly the same way as you would do it with a flash drive. Just extract the files and make the device boot-able.

well how do I do it with multiple OS? My goal is to put two OS setups into one HDD.. I only know how to do it with one OS setup :(
 
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well how do I do it with multiple OS? My goal is to put two OS setups into one HDD.. I only know how to do it with one OS setup :(

You need to create 3 partitions... 2 for the Windows installers what ever is left over for free space.

Extract the ISOs to their own partitions and add the boot code.


You might need to install windows 8 to the free space partition temporarily as it will install windows boot manager/loader and it should then give you the option of witch partition to boot.
 
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