600 replies to this topic

[Tech Dread]

I finally got around to installing Windows 7 on my Patriot Xporter 16GB. Took 58 Minutes to copy files but I rebooted and to my amazement, it initialized windows, rebooted and I was staring at a Windows 7 desktop! Didn't have to do anything special, it just worked! Amazing!

Now: What good will it do me?

TD

[fujianabc]

100219:

Some very small bugs are fixed.

[motah33]

I've got a Dell 690 and I'm using a NESO 500GB USB hard drive. Everything works when running installer.cmd from withing WinXP.

When I boot from the USB drive, Windows 7 starts but part way through may machine reboots.You can see "Windows" and the logo but after a minute or so, it reboots. If I take this USB drive to a Windows 7 machine, the drive shows up as a "local disk" but is unreadable. Windows 7 gives an error.

Any idea what could be happening here?

Thanks

[rocketero]

I've got a Dell 690 and I'm using a NESO 500GB USB hard drive. Everything works when running installer.cmd from withing WinXP.
When I boot from the USB drive, Windows 7 starts but part way through may machine reboots.You can see "Windows" and the logo but after a minute or so, it reboots. If I take this USB drive to a Windows 7 machine, the drive shows up as a "local disk" but is unreadable. Windows 7 gives an error.
Any idea what could be happening here?
Thanks

If the USB hard disk is listed under "Local Hard Disks Drives' and if you can select it from Bios as the first boot drive, I was just wondering why don't you just use the regular method of installing Windows 7 to it.

I have a 1TB (TeraByte) USB drive but I don't have Windows 7 in it as I have it in another fixed Hard drive instead. But I have Linux OpenSuSE 11.1 and Ubuntu 9.10 in this USB drive and they boot fine with a Grub4Dos boot menu.

I did install Windows 7 to a USB stick (7.46 GB in size) but that's another story as this stick was listed under "Devices With Removable Storage" in Windows Vista.

[motah33]

Thanks for the info, rocketero.

Windows 7 won't install using the regular method on the USB drive. It won't let me select the drive saying that it won't install on a Firewire/USB drive.

The other potential problem is that I don't have the Beta v7000 of the bcdboot.exe file. I'm using the v7600 one. I don't know if this is significant or not. If someone could upload one, I can try with this.

Thanks

[fujianabc]

The other potential problem is that I don't have the Beta v7000 of the bcdboot.exe file. I'm using the v7600 one. I don't know if this is significant or not. If someone could upload one, I can try with this.

The bcdboot v7000 is used to be compatible with xp based winpe. If you use other OS to run the installer, you can use bcdboot v7600

[motah33]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm running the installed from withing WinXP SP3. Is it a problem that I'm using v7600 for bcdboot.exe?

What if I went to a Windows 7 machine and tried to run the installer from there. That will have bcdboot.exe v7600.

Any idea's as to what could be happening when I boot from the USB? Because it appears to boot and the windows logo appears. Up to this point, you can see the USB drive is working. I then notice that the USB drive stops and after a while, my machine reboots.

Thanks

[Escorpiom]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm running the installed from withing WinXP SP3. Is it a problem that I'm using v7600 for bcdboot.exe?

What if I went to a Windows 7 machine and tried to run the installer from there. That will have bcdboot.exe v7600.

Any idea's as to what could be happening when I boot from the USB? Because it appears to boot and the windows logo appears. Up to this point, you can see the USB drive is working. I then notice that the USB drive stops and after a while, my machine reboots.

Thanks

Running the installer from Windows XP requires the version 7000 of bcdboot.exe. I tried with v7600 first but it didn't work.
I do not know if your problem has something to do with the version 7600 of bcdboot.exe, I would just make sure to follow the recomendations given, even if that means downloading the whole Windows 7 beta.

This is only valid if you run the installer from Windows XP, if your OS is Windows 7 you can use version 7600 without any problem.

Cheers,
Escorpiom.

[motah33]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm currently using WinXP so it would be nice to do this from within XP.

However, I tried the installer, with version 7600 of bcdboot, on a Windows 7 machine. I got a lot further this time. I made it through the setup screen and I was able to set the language, time, account name etc. Once all this was done, Windows 7 said it needed to reboot. This is when I it crashed with a blue screen. The error was: 0x0000007B. After this I haven't been able to reboot at all. It seems like something has got corrupted.

Thanks

[Escorpiom]

That's odd. I understand you are using a 500GB USB hard drive, if you connect it to a windows 7 machine how does it show in device manager? Removable or fixed?

Anyway, error 0x0000007B means INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.
After running NT 6.x fast installer, you are asked to reboot. I understand that it boots the first time from the USB drive?
But after finishing setup, on the second reboot it gives a blue screen, that would mean Windows 7 has a problem finding the boot device.
It might be possible that during hardware setup some driver is installed for the USB drive, drive letter has been changed.
Or there might be a problem with the file system/partition. It should be NTFS, primary and set active.

Cheers,
Escorpiom.

[motah33]

Thanks for the info.

I managed to get it solved. When I ran the Win7 set-up, I had the SAS/SATA controllers on my machine switched on. When it rebooted, I switched them off through the BIOS. I think that perhaps got set-up confusd. Anyway, I switched them on and it booted fine into Windows 7. I can see it running from the USB device.

It would be useful to get hold of the bcdboot v7000 so that I can run the installer from WinXP.

Thanks

[fujianabc]

Thanks for the info.

I managed to get it solved. When I ran the Win7 set-up, I had the SAS/SATA controllers on my machine switched on. When it rebooted, I switched them off through the BIOS. I think that perhaps got set-up confusd. Anyway, I switched them on and it booted fine into Windows 7. I can see it running from the USB device.

It would be useful to get hold of the bcdboot v7000 so that I can run the installer from WinXP.

Thanks

Send me your email in the message, I can give you bcdboot 7000.

[Escorpiom]

Send me your email in the message, I can give you bcdboot 7000.

He has it already.

Cheers,
Escorpiom.

[motah33]

Some feedback:

1. If I use bcdboot v7000 from within XP to install Win7 on an external USB drive, when I boot I get the BSOD just after the Win7 logo appears.

2. If I use bcdboot v7600 from within Win7 to install Win7 on an external USB drive, when I boot everything works fine e.g. Win7 runs set-up etc.

From what I understand, I should be able to install the files from within WinXP, boot the USB drive, and Win7 should install drivers etc. but it doesn't seem to work.

Thanks

[dyce]

i am trying to install windows 7 64bit ultimate to my local C: drive. But when I use this tool it doesnt seem to work as after restarting windows will BSOD or sometimes it said "windows cannot be configured on your computer's hardware" or something similar.

can you suggest what I am doing wrong? is this meant only for USB?

I am using a LiveXP/BartPE as the environment to run the script from.
i am formatting my disk as one NTFS primary partition as C:
I know in normal installations there is another partition of 100mb. is this why its not working for me? i need to create 2 partitions?

[amalux]

i am trying to install windows 7 64bit ultimate to my local C: drive. But when I use this tool it doesnt seem to work as after restarting windows will BSOD or sometimes it said "windows cannot be configured on your computer's hardware" or something similar.

can you suggest what I am doing wrong? is this meant only for USB?

I am using a LiveXP/BartPE as the environment to run the script from.
i am formatting my disk as one NTFS primary partition as C:
I know in normal installations there is another partition of 100mb. is this why its not working for me? i need to create 2 partitions?

Fwiw, I don't need the additional partition and Win7 installs from LiveXP (using the installer from any boot media) without issue on machines I've tested. These are older machines with PATA drives and 'standard' hardware. I know nothing of 64bit and it's possible drivers for your newish hardware are required. Have you tried repair options from Win7 boot DVD?

[NMCowboy]

This all works great. I have installed both x32 and x64 to a USB flash drive and it is a really valuable tool for running system repairs and recovery. I was looking at the drive letter batch file and after some examination it appears that it only modifies the drive letter in the mounted devices section of the registry. None the less it is a pretty sophisticated command file with thorough error checking. I was wondering if there is anything around that would process a system drive in similar fashion, but would replace all occurances of the current drive letter with a new drive letter. I have run into situations where for various reasons the operating system was installed on D: or E: because it was a second OS, but now the User wants to delete the OS on drive C: and make the OS on drive E: for example, the primary. As far as I know there is no program that will accomplish that even if it were running from another system on a flashdrive. If something does exist I would sure like to know about it. If the author of the drive letter batch file, who obviously has the skills in this area is interested, it sure would be a valuable tool that would interest a lot of people.

[rocketero]

This all works great. I have installed both x32 and x64 to a USB flash drive and it is a really valuable tool for running system repairs and recovery. I was looking at the drive letter batch file and after some examination it appears that it only modifies the drive letter in the mounted devices section of the registry. None the less it is a pretty sophisticated command file with thorough error checking. I was wondering if there is anything around that would process a system drive in similar fashion, but would replace all occurrences of the current drive letter with a new drive letter. I have run into situations where for various reasons the operating system was installed on D: or E: because it was a second OS, but now the User wants to delete the OS on drive C: and make the OS on drive E: for example, the primary. As far as I know there is no program that will accomplish that even if it were running from another system on a flashdrive. If something does exist I would sure like to know about it. If the author of the drive letter batch file, who obviously has the skills in this area is interested, it sure would be a valuable tool that would interest a lot of people.

The reason many people end up with D: as a system drive is because they make the mistake of installing the other operating system without first creating another partition and make it active just before rebooting while the DVD of the OS is in the tray.

Let's say you are on Windows Vista and have only one Hard drive and one Partition. In this case you have to 'Shrink' the volume in order to have an additional partition to install the other OS let's say Windows 7.

And if you have another partition already or have a second hard drive then the method to avoid having a letter D: as a system drive is before rebooting from Vista go to 'Computer Management' and select the partition you are going to install Windows 7 and make that partition the 'Active' one.

That way after you boot that partition will became the "System" Partition and avoid all the headaches I've seen by not doing so.

[NMCowboy]

Thanks for your reply, but I am aware of how to avoid the problem. However, when I walk into a situation where the problem already exists I would like to have some alternative rather than "Clean Reinstall". What is necessary is a program that will, in addition to changing the mounted devices drive letter, scan through every entry in the registry and chang the old "non-C:" drive letter to C:. Partition magic used to do that but only when merging partitions; I don't think it would just perform that operation on a stand-alone drive. Thank you for your interest.

[Wonko the Sane]

@NMCowboy

Have you tried good ol' COA2?
http://www.pcmag.com...17,21065,00.asp



Wonko

[NMCowboy]

Wonko,

I never heard of good ol' COA2. I took a look at it and is interesting. It seems to be designed to handle one program entry at a time, but later on in the documentation it says that it can handle an unqualified drive letter. One problem is that it is old, old, old. The documentation says it can handle Win 95, ... through Windows 2000. Who knows what registry differences exist between Windows 2000 and Windows 7. Secondly, it was designed to run in the environment it is changing. So it's sort of like sawing the limb off the tree while sitting on the limb. I can just picture trying to run COA2 on the system drive and having the machine lock solid or BSOD right in the middle of the job. I was looking for something that I could run from WinPE/BartPE/Windows7 on a stick or DVD against an idle system drive. That means going to that drive and opening the registry as a file, making the changes, and then writing it back without worrying about any system activity. Good idea though. I just might try running it against a USB drive with Windows 7 and see what happens. If it croaks I can always restore the stick. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Wonko the Sane]

You won't like the alternatives.

Which are, AFAIK/AFAICR:

• using gsar or similar utility on an off-line hive
• using a Registry filesystem driver : and some batch renaming:
  http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=7681
• convince Nuno into make something actually useful out of RAWREG! :
  http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=4684
• convince ANY programmer to work on a updated utility (if needed) knowing that sources for coa2, #1, #2 BUT NOT #3 are available.

Wonko

[Max_Thrust]

First off what a great piece of work!!! I have been trying to get Win 7 on a USB HD for months now and this makes it so quick, unfortunatly I am still having an issue and not sure where it is. First I have always thought I was missing a reg entry change or something but I found out I do not think that is the issue. Here is what I did / done:

I ran the "installer" from BartPE, Installer ran fine and all is good. Next when I reboot to the USB HD I keep getting a reboot like many others, I cannot see the BSOD error but in the past it was the 7B.

Here is where it gets strange, I get this issue on a Dell Opti 740 (I also tried it on a couple of other 740 boxes with same outcome), this box will run XP from the USB HD with no problems, and will run Win 7 when the HD is internal. I did a little experiment and took my USB HD to a Dell Opti 760, and it booted just fine with it.

I was reading in other posts on this thread that Dell Mobo's can have some issues and may need to run another command, patch or something, but a couple of posts down from that it says that is not needed anymore.

So I was wondering what I did wrong, like maybe I should make a WinPE 3.0, need an extra file for the 740, change a BIOS setting or what.

Once again thanks for the great work!!!

Dave

One more thing the 740 is AMD, while the 760 is an Intel if that makes a difference.

[Wonko the Sane]

One more thing the 740 is AMD, while the 760 is an Intel if that makes a difference.

Check this:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9830

Cannot say if it contains anything useful for your problem, though.



Wonko

[Max_Thrust]

The following came from the other post which describes what I was seeing but backwards. For me it will not boot on the AMD X2, but will on the Intel.

I know I had to modify IASTOR for my XP USB HD install and was very easy to do. But for Win 7 The packing is different, so how do I "inject" that file into the Win 7?

Thanks,


Windows 7 boots perfect from USB-HDD on machine (ASUS MoBo with AMD Athlon 64 X2) where Windows 7 was previously installed,
but booting with Windows 7 from USB-HDD if connected to laptop (Intel Pentium DualCore, IASTOR needed for HDD),
then BSOD 7B occurred due to missing IASTOR driver and missing IASTOR registry settings for Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase and Services\iaStor
Adding to running Windows 7 the given HKLM_SYSTEM_iaStor.reg registry tweak and adding the files for iaStor driver solved the problem.
Then Windows 7 was booting from USB-HDD on both machines and can be seen as Universal Windows 7.