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Installing Windows 8 directly from Windows 7

Started by Brito , Aug 23 2012 12:32 PM

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#1 Brito

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 12:32 PM

Hello,

I am trying to installing Windows 8 on a stubborn laptop.

This machine has no optical drives and the USB drive booting the Windows 8 pendisk just says "File not found" after the initial boot start whereas the identical pendisk works fine when used to install Windows 7 from USB.

My last hope was installing Windows 7 to the laptop and then try to launch the Windows 8 installer from there. However this also fails to work when trying to run the setup.exe available on the root folder.

Anyone has ideas regarding how to launch the Windows 8 installer while from within Windows 7?

Thanks!

#2 MedEvil

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 12:45 PM

Depends on which Win8 Version and which Win7 version.

:cheers:

#3 Brito

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 01:04 PM

I'm using a Windows 7 professional and Windows 8 release preview, both at 32bits.

:cheers:

#4 cdob

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 02:09 PM

This machine has no optical drives and the USB drive booting the Windows 8 pendisk just says "File not found" after the initial boot start

Which hardware do you use?

Press Shift F10 to open command prompt.
Launch diskpart and run "list volume". Does exist USB drive?
Disconnect and reconnect USB drive. Does exist USB drive now?

Use dism and bcdboot to transfer Windows 8 files to internal hard disk.
http://reboot.pro/16..._75#entry153514

#5 Brito

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 03:38 PM

Hi cdob,

My hardware is an old Panasonic ToughBook CF-29 Mk1 that came originally with Windows XP.

My present host OS is Windows 7 and the DISM instructions seem to be valid only for Windows 8 hosts, or am I wrong?


I have the impression that attempting to use the USB pendisk will only replicate the same errors as before. My goal is installing Windows 8 directly from the running Windows 7 onto another partition.

:cheers:

#6 MedEvil

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 05:13 PM

Oh you want to install into another partition. Thought you were talking about upgrading.

Have you tryed the 'NT6 fast installer'?

:cheers:

#7 sbaeder

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 06:05 PM

Or if you have the space, push the ISO to the hard drive under Win7, then mount it inside Win 7 (use something like virtual clone drive) and do it that way.

#8 cdob

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Posted 23 August 2012 - 07:11 PM

My present host OS is Windows 7 and the DISM instructions seem to be valid only for Windows 8 hosts, or am I wrong?

Yes, Windows 7 dism dosn't support apply. Use imagex from WAIK instead.
imagex.exe /apply J:\sources\install.wim 1 I:\

Use bcdboot.exe from Windows 7.

I have the impression that attempting to use the USB pendisk will only replicate the same errors as before.

Testing would be nice still. Why does install misses files?

#9 TheHive

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Posted 24 August 2012 - 05:20 AM

Havent tryied this yet. But
Remove the HD from the machine. Use a Virtual PC to Start the Install on to the Real HD removed. Then Connect the HD to the machine and let it do the second phase of setting windows up in the Real machine. See if that works.

#10 Vortex

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Posted 24 August 2012 - 06:48 AM

Hi Nuno,

Remove the hard disc and connect it to another computer. Format the C drive and extract the following folders files from the Windows 8 .iso file to the root partition :


sources

boot

bootmgr

If necessary :

bootsect.exe /nt60 C:

Attach the hard disc to the laptop and the installation will start from the HD.

#11 coder

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Posted 26 August 2012 - 08:08 AM

before getting the screwdriver why don't you try some net boot strategy?

#12 ahmed_2009

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Posted 22 October 2012 - 03:38 PM

thank you

#13 agni

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Posted 24 October 2012 - 01:56 AM

You can try these instructions to install Windows 8 directly from Windows 7.

http://agnipulse.com...condary-medium/

http://reboot.pro/8863/

These instructions are specific to Windows 7, but I think you can modify them for Windows 8.

This method basically involves copying the contents of your Windows 8 Disc to your hard disk and adding a boot entry to your boot menu (on your hard disk) to load the bootmgr of Windows 8 setup.

#14 edborg

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Posted 07 November 2012 - 11:30 PM

Hello,

I am trying to installing Windows 8 on a stubborn laptop.

This machine has no optical drives and the USB drive booting the Windows 8 pendisk just says "File not found" after the initial boot start whereas the identical pendisk works fine when used to install Windows 7 from USB.

My last hope was installing Windows 7 to the laptop and then try to launch the Windows 8 installer from there. However this also fails to work when trying to run the setup.exe available on the root folder.

Anyone has ideas regarding how to launch the Windows 8 installer while from within Windows 7?

Thanks!


Hi Nuno,
If I'm not too late...

I've just installed Win8 on a third partition of a dual boot (WinXP/Win7) notebook with no optical drive.

First time I did it from Windows, as you want to do, by mounting the Win8Setup.iso to a virtual drive with VirtualCDRom.
I ran setup.exe from the virtual drive in the host Windows and the setup started well.
The only problem was that this way you can't do a clean install, but are only allowed to upgrade an existing install (and need an extra 16 GB free on the partition).

As I wanted a clean install besides WinXP and Win7, I transferred the content of the Win8Setup.iso to a partition of an USB HD and booted from that. Everything went well this way.

As I couldn't find an automated method for the transfer that recognized a partitioned USB, I had to do it manually this way:
Used BootIce to write the proper PBR to a partition of an USB HD and to make it active.
Copied to that partition all files from the virtual drive after making system and hidden files visible in the host Windows.
I then booted from USB and chose clean install.

Hope it works for you as well,

edborg
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