Installing Windows 7 to a Netbook with no dvd drive?

opmharley · Post by **opmharley** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:57 am

Hey everyone,

Quick question. I am installing Windows 7 on a friends computer he has a MSI-Wind 100 Netbook and their is no dvd drive. I have a 4gb flash drive that I am going to put the ISO on and boot from USB. He lives kind of far away and I want to get it right the first time.

He bought this netbook off some kid and it currently has Mac OSx on it. I keep reading all sorts of different things on the web about how to go about doing this. I believe I need the USB drive to be set to active and NTFS.

Is their some way I can just pre setup everything on my computer before I get to his house and just set the bios to load from usb first then load up the usb drive and format everything and do a clean install. Or do I have to go through Mac OSx to get it to work.

Any help is more then appreciated.
Thanks, Harley

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 6:04 am

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1381323

opmharley · Post by **opmharley** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:33 am

Nice, that looks like the most simple way to do it hands down. All these other guides I found seemed way to complicated for the average joe trying to install on his netbook. I'm about to try it later and let you know how it goes.

Thanks, Harley

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:23 pm

yep, aside from just using an external USB DVD drive, a flash drive is quite easy. just keep in mind it can take more or less time compared to a DVD drive depending on the speed class of the flash memory (class 2, class 4 and so forth) but it will definitely work. if youre shopping for media i would make sure its at least class 6 or higher.

2 loud · Post by **2 loud** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:43 pm

Another option is you have the iso on the flash drive is to just copy it to your hard drive and use a program like virtual clone drive http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html to mount the iso image. This may be faster than installing off a flash drive. But seeing that you currently have Mac OSX on the netbook this may not work.

opmharley · Post by **opmharley** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:22 pm

Anyone know of a way I can just copy the ISO over and run it in mac osx? I'm thinking its not possible. I know their is a program called mountme which is like daemon tools for Mac.

Faust, how can I tell what class my usb drive is?

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:44 pm

I installed Vista business with a flash drive once. It was pretty neat.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:47 pm

Faust wrote:yep, aside from just using an external USB DVD drive, a flash drive is quite easy. just keep in mind it can take more or less time compared to a DVD drive depending on the speed class of the flash memory (class 2, class 4 and so forth) but it will definitely work. if youre shopping for media i would make sure its at least class 6 or higher.

My install went pretty fast.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:53 pm

opmharley wrote:Faust, how can I tell what class my usb drive is?

either by looking up the specs from the mfgr or just try moving a large file onto/off of the drive. im unfamiliar enough with OS X to know if it reports disk transfer speeds or if you will have to time it and do the math. you could create a .zip file with a nice round size like 500MB or 1GB or whatever, adding whatever files to the .zip till it was exactly the size needed.

about halfway down this page there is a chart for reference.

the sdhc cards i have used were class 4, which seemed a bit slower than a DVD-ROM, which is why i recommeded something faster if you were shopping for a flash drive. if not, whatever you have on hand will work fine. not like you will be installing on a daily basis.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:58 pm

CableDude wrote:My install went pretty fast.

sure didnt seem that way to me. i admit when im sitting there doing nothing i get kinda fidgety so it could have been all in my head, but at best it was equal to a DVD, iirc

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:29 pm

Faust wrote:sure didnt seem that way to me. i admit when im sitting there doing nothing i get kinda fidgety so it could have been all in my head, but at best it was equal to a DVD, iirc

Ok, I didn't sit there and watch it. So maybe it was not that fast.

But, it was neat to be able to do it that way.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:46 pm

CableDude wrote:Ok, I didn't sit there and watch it. So maybe it was not that fast.

But, it was neat to be able to do it that way.

indeed!

as a matter of fact, what it did for me more than anything was key me into the class ratings of flash media. before then it wasnt something i paid any attention to. and, since theyre getting used for more things other than just secondary/portable file storage (readyburst, as an example), the speed rating is at least the #2 priority after storage space. maybe #1 depending on how itll be used.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:48 pm

Faust wrote:indeed!

as a matter of fact, what it did for me more than anything was key me into the class ratings of flash media. before then it wasnt something i paid any attention to. and, since theyre getting used for more things other than just secondary/portable file storage (readyburst, as an example), the speed rating is at least the #2 priority after storage space. maybe #1 depending on how itll be used.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:09 pm

This is all theory because I’ve never had to do it. I’m almost certain it’ll work if your PC has the “Boot from USB” option in the bios.

Take at least a four gig USB drive and copy over the CD and this file. Without that file the CD won’t be bootable. You can make a direct copy of a CD and if you don’t extract that file and add it that CD won’t be bootable. Just MS up to their sneaky tricks again.

If you want to cut down on the massive initial update times, slipstream SP3 into it before the install, using nLite. It’s a matter of personal preference but I didn’t include IE8, I’m happy with 7.