Install Windows From External Hard Drive Official

Some older computers won’t boot from an external hard drive via USB. And if your external drive is slow (5400 RPM), the initial boot to setup might take a minute or two. But once the Windows installer loads into RAM, speed is fine.

diskpart list disk (find your external drive – be careful not to pick the wrong one ) select disk 2 (for example) list partition select partition 1 active exit

You open Command Prompt as Administrator . install windows from external hard drive

Here’s a short, narrative-style guide based on the phrase — told as if you’re the one doing it. You’ve got a laptop with a broken internal drive, or maybe you just want a fresh Windows install without burning a DVD or making a USB stick from scratch. All you have is an old external hard drive and a Windows ISO file.

You plug the external drive into the target computer, restart, and enter the boot menu (usually F12, ESC, or F2). You select “USB Hard Drive” or the external drive’s name. The computer boots straight into the blue Windows Setup screen — just as if you were using a USB flash drive. Some older computers won’t boot from an external

It takes about 10–15 minutes for the copy to finish. When it’s done, your external hard drive is now a Windows installation drive.

Then you use bootsect /nt60 F: (where F: is your external drive) to write the Windows boot code onto it. diskpart list disk (find your external drive –

In the end, you sit back, watch the “Getting files ready for installation” screen, and realize: an old external hard drive just saved you from hunting for a DVD or an 8 GB flash drive.