Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
Elias Plastiras, PC World Australia
Oct 19, 2009 2:08 pm
http://www.pcworld.com/article/17391...nl_dnx_h_crawl
While the easiest way to install Windows 7 on a netbook is by booting
from an external DVD drive, it’s probably not worth spending $100 on a
drive that you won’t use more than a few times. It’s much more
economical to use a 4GB USB key, which will only set you back $10-15.
And it will also be quicker and more convenient!
But installing Windows 7 via a USB key isn’t as straightforward as it
seems. You can’t just copy the contents of your Windows 7 DVD onto the
USB key and then boot from it. Before you even think about copying
Windows 7 to the USB key, you must give it an active partition it and
make it bootable. As many of you will be upgrading to Windows 7 from
Windows XP, we will go through the steps required to prepare a USB key
on a Windows XP-equipped computer.
Note: Because Windows 7 can’t be installed as an upgrade over Windows
XP, you will need to use the ‘Custom’ installation option, which means
all your programs and data will be lost. For this reason, be sure to
back up all your data, programs, e-mail and configuration settings
before you attempt the installation.
Step 1: Format the USB key and make it active
Because a USB key is seen as a removable device in Windows XP, the
Disk Management console won’t let you partition it, nor make a
partition active. That option will be greyed out.
It won’t even let you format a USB key using the NTFS file system.
To get around this limitation, you have to use a third-party utility.
We’ve trawled through countless guides on the Web, and found that the
easiest way to format our USB key and give it an active partition is
to use HP’s USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Not only can this format
your USB key using the NTFS file system, it also automatically makes
the formatted NTFS partition an active one.
You can download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool from HP’s
Business Support Center.
To use it, simply select your USB key from the ‘Device’ list, change
the ‘File system’ to NTFS, select Quick Format and click on Start. The
whole process will take a few seconds.
HP’s USB Disk Storage Format Tool is simple to use and it will work
with most USB keys.
To confirm that your USB key has been correctly formatted, right-click
on My Computer, click on Manage, and then click on Disk Management.
Your USB key should now be listed with a ‘Healthy (Active)’ status,
and it should say NTFS next to the capacity.
Before we formatted the USB key with HP’s tool, the status simply read
‘Healthy’ and the file format was FAT32.
Step 2: Make it bootable
Now that the USB key has an active NTFS partition, the next step is to
make it bootable. For this step, you will need your Windows 7 DVD and
you will need to get your hands dirty in the Command Prompt.
Windows 7 uses a loading program called Bootmgr. The active partition
on the USB key needs to have code written to its boot sector that is
compatible with Bootmgr. This code can be written to the USB key by
using the bootsect.exe program that is present in the Boot folder of
the Windows 7 DVD. To extract this code, we have to use the Command
Prompt. From the Start menu select Run, type cmd and press Enter.
Once the Command Prompt is open, switch to your Windows 7 DVD by
typing the drive letter for your DVD drive, which is usually d:. Then,
you must type the following line:
boot\bootsect /nt60 j:
In this line, we are telling bootsect to use the /nt60 command to
write the compatible boot code to our USB drive, which is the j:
drive. Substitute the letter of your own USB drive for j:.
When this is successful, your screen will look like this:
Step 3: Copy Windows 7 to the USB key
Now that the USB key is prepared, all that remains is to copy the
contents of your Windows 7 DVD to the USB key.
The root folder of the Windows 7 DVD contains five folders and three
files, and the entire disk is 2.32GB.
This will take approximately 7min to copy, depending on the speed of
your computer and USB drive.
Step 4: Change your netbook’s boot device
In order to install Windows 7, your netbook will need to boot from
your USB key, rather than its hard drive. To change this, you need to
enter the BIOS and alter the boot settings. How this is accomplished
varies depending on the make and model of the netbook. In general, to
get into the BIOS you have to press either the DEL key or one of the
Function buttons. Look for a message on the screen when you first
switch on the netbook; often there will be an indication of which key
or key combination you should press in order to enter the BIOS.
Plug in your USB key, and switch on the netbook. Once in the BIOS, go
to the Boot menu and look for the ‘Boot Device Priority’ setting. In
this setting, change the ‘1st Boot Device’ option to ‘USB’. On some
netbooks (such as the MSI Wind 12 U200), it may even give you the name
of your USB key.
The MSI Wind 12 U200 shows us the actual name of our USB key.
Once you’ve changed the boot device, save your changes and exit the
BIOS. The netbook will now load from the USB key and proceed to
install Windows 7. When the installation reaches the point where it
restarts the system, be sure to remove the USB key, otherwise the
netbook will boot from the USB key once again and will restart the
installation.
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