Need a few tips for WINDOWS 8 install

[jonathan1107]

Hi,

my wife's laptop is due for an upgrade... It has vista 64 bit installed on it.
I have been wondering as to "how to install w8 on her pc"... because I intend to buy a digital copy of windows 8 or maybe windows 7...

If I'm right, in order to install from a digital copy of w8, I'll need to make a bootable USB stick or use DVDs correct?

How much space will I need for a w8 install on the stick or dvd?

Can I use an "EXTERNAL hard drive" instead (as a bootable drive) ?
If so... do I have to format it into fat32? or is there another way?
Will I lose everything on that external HDD if I use it as bootable drive?

Can't I just run the "image" (iso) that would be located on the external hdd?

 

[TRWOV]

A 4GB stick will be enough, and yes you will have to make it a bootable drive (the W8 download wizard will let you choose to save an ISO file, save the upgrade to a folder or make a boot USB).

I'd recommend you to save the ISO, you can make a bootable install USB stick with the Windows 7 USB Download tool (works with W8 ISOs too): http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

Installing W8 isn't that much different from installing W7, the only heads up is when setting accounts. W8 will ask for your "MS account" (the old Windows Live ID) but you can use a "local" (i.e. the normal kind as in W7/XP etc, etc) if you so desire. To do that you must go into the "Make a new account" option when W8 ask for your MS account, inside that option it will give you the option to create a "local" account (Sign in without an MS Account" I think it was called).

If you choose to run the W8 installer while running W7 all the HDD contents will be kept in a folder called Windows.OLD. I'd do a fresh install but that's me.

 

[johnspack]

Sorry, have to say it, either do win7, or go all the way to 8.1... why bother with 8 at this point? I hate both win8s, so I'd pick the more evil of the 2......

 

[jonathan1107]

Sorry, have to say it, either do win7, or go all the way to 8.1... why bother with 8 at this point? I hate both win8s, so I'd pick the more evil of the 2......

ahh sorry I did mean 8.1... didn't bother to type the .1...

but you guys haven'T answered my original question:
Can I use an "EXTERNAL hard drive" instead (as a bootable drive) ???

(you know the thing that connects through a USB cable to your computer)
the reason I ask is because I could avoid having to go buy a usb jump drive

EDIT: If I purchase windows 8.1, must I purchase windows 8 first then install 8.1?
or everything's included in the 8.1 file (update and windows 8)

 

[ruff0r]

ahh sorry I did mean 8.1... didn't bother to type the .1...

but you guys haven'T answered my original question:
Can I use an "EXTERNAL hard drive" instead (as a bootable drive) ???

No Only internal drives are able to be bootable drives. There is one way with Windows 8.x Enterprise which is Windows To Go Maybe that will work on a usb HDD as well.

EDIT: If I purchase windows 8.1, must I purchase windows 8 first then install 8.1?
or everything's included in the 8.1 file (update and windows 8)

If you purchase windows 8.1 then you will install windows 8.1

If you purchased like me windows 8.0 you will need to install windows 8 and then update it to windows 8.1 which is free.

 

[micropage7]

ahh sorry I did mean 8.1... didn't bother to type the .1...

but you guys haven'T answered my original question:
Can I use an "EXTERNAL hard drive" instead (as a bootable drive) ???

(you know the thing that connects through a USB cable to your computer)
the reason I ask is because I could avoid having to go buy a usb jump drive

EDIT: If I purchase windows 8.1, must I purchase windows 8 first then install 8.1?
or everything's included in the 8.1 file (update and windows 8)

you can buy 8.1
and back to first question, i prefer using usb flash disk and installing from that
from connection it looks you can use external as bootable but im not sure, i havent tried it yet

 

[newtekie1]

1.) When you purchase digitally you will first download the ISO, then the installer will ask you how you want to use that ISO. You can burn it to a disc or write a bootable USB drive.
2.) Yes, you can use a USB External hard drive.
3.) Everything on the drive will be deleted when you do this. It doesn't matter if you use a flash drive or a hard drive, the first thing the utility does is format the device you are going to use to install Windows from.
4.) When you buy Windows 8.1 you install 8.1 directly, you don't have to install 8 first and then upgrade.

 

[jonathan1107]

1.) When you purchase digitally you will first download the ISO, then the installer will ask you how you want to use that ISO. You can burn it to a disc or write a bootable USB drive.
2.) Yes, you can use a USB External hard drive.
3.) Everything on the drive will be deleted when you do this. It doesn't matter if you use a flash drive or a hard drive, the first thing the utility does is format the device you are going to use to install Windows from.
4.) When you buy Windows 8.1 you install 8.1 directly, you don't have to install 8 first and then upgrade.

now that is what I call answering a question right
Thank you very much dear sir. Definitly pressing that "thanks" button.

I'll be using the ISO on a bootable usd drive.
Found an 8gb stick in the house
didn't remember we had that lol

 

[jonathan1107]

hmmm weird... When I use the .EXE file in the microsoft store and start it up...
I get a message that it only runs from windows 7... not meant to work with xp and vista computers or something...

Am I doing something wrong?
Can I install windows 8.1 still?
using the usb bootable drive?

 

[digibucc]

i just wanted to clarify, it will no longer be an iso once it's on the usb flash drive. the iso is the image file, when it's just a file, on your computer. you won't be simply copying the iso to the flash drive, but using software you will be making the flash drive into a copy of the iso file, so it's contents are the contents of the iso file, rather than containing the file itself.

EDIT:

hmmm weird... When I use the .EXE file in the microsoft store and start it up...
I get a message that it only runs from windows 7... not meant to work with xp and vista computers or something...

Am I doing something wrong?
Can I install windows 8.1 still?
using the usb bootable drive?

you can't use the exe then, you have to download the iso instead, and use the Windows 7 USB / DVD Download tool to write the iso to your flash drive, then reboot the computer and boot off of the flash drive.

 

[jonathan1107]

i just wanted to clarify, it will no longer be an iso once it's on the usb flash drive. the iso is the image file, when it's just a file, on your computer. you won't be simply copying the iso to the flash drive, but using software you will be making the flash drive into a copy of the iso file, so it's contents are the contents of the iso file, rather than containing the file itself.

EDIT:


you can't use the exe then, you have to download the iso instead, and use the Windows 7 USB / DVD Download tool to write the iso to your flash drive, then reboot the computer and boot off of the flash drive.

What I did is I downloaded the windows 8.1 iso file.
formatted the USB drive into a new NTFS partition onto which I copied the iso file...
When I boot my wife's laptop from the USB I get the "bootmgr is missing" error message (followed by ctrl alt del to restart)

 

[newtekie1]

You can't just copy the ISO file onto the USB drive, you have to either have the Windows 8.1 utility setup the flash drive for you using the ISO or set up the flash drive yourself using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool.

It seems microsoft has broken their link to the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool, so you might have to do some googling.

Edit: It looks like you can get it from CNET: http://download.cnet.com/Windows-7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool/3000-18513_4-10972600.html

 

[jonathan1107]

ok guys I have a MAJOR problem now.

After I tried booting from the usb drive containing the iso (thinking I didn't need anything else than a bootable usb drive... didn't know I needed the said windows 7 usb tool thingy, I went to my own PC (my windows 7 pc) to initiate the windows 8 install from the microsfot store...

I downloaded the .exe file and executed it... it downloaded the files... and at some point it was saying "checking files" "getting files ready" or something like that...
it was rather slow... so I decided to leave it to do its thing thinking when I'd come back, I'm simply use their tool to prep the usb drive... I didn't think I needed to download the windows 7 tool...

I thought the tool you were referring to was in fact the .exe I have in my download section (from my pruchases section of the microsoft store)...

So now for some reason, my PC won't boot... it asks me to put a bootable device or something... When I look at my boot device priority order... I see my IDE (raid drives) but I don't see my SSD anymore WTF !?!

When I came back from getting ice cream, my PC was on a BSOD... what on earth happened lol ?

 

[andrewsmc]

Ok, if you don't know what your doing please make your life easy. Buy the Windows DISKS, boot from CD and install that way. If you don't succeed at that please have someone else do it for you.

 

[newtekie1]

When I came back from getting ice cream, my PC was on a BSOD... what on earth happened lol ?

Sounds to me like your SSD died...