Comments on: How to Install Windows 7 or Windows Vista on Physical Machine Without DVD Media

By: PuZo

PuZo — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:56:29 +0000

1. bootmgr is a file, not a folder
2. This method doesn’t work (from Windows Vista); the computer boots back to Vista at step 10.

By: How to Install Windows 7 or Vista from Bootable Portable USB Flash Memory Key or Hard Disk Drive » My Digital Life

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:25:23 +0000

[...] media disc to install Windows 7 or Vista on another remote computer, where it’s possible to install with Windows 7 or Vista ISO without burning to DVD on local computer where ISO file is saved. If it’s impossible or cannot install Windows 7 or [...]

By: Cibori

Cibori — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:44:53 +0000

I’ve experimented with this – could be very useful at some point. Didn’t want to change my existing system so I attached an extra disk, divided it into two partitions, put the boot section on the first, and the installation files on the second, removed my system disk after stage 10 and rebooted. At first it failed but then I realised I’d forgotten to mark the first partition active. I therefore did that with the aid of a DOS diskette from the bad old days, and the disk booted up beautifully. I followed stages 11 to 15 and Windows 7 began to install and everything looked rosy, but then… Installation stopped and showed a message insisting that dvd/cd rom drivers necessary for the installation were missing and I should insert a disk or USB stick with these drivers!!! Didn’t indicate which drivers they should be but there was no way around it, so I had to abort the installation. Weird, since the installation isn’t going to use the optical drive. I removed that completely to be sure and tried again but still got stopped at the same point. Nobody else seems to have experienced this problem. So the reboot before the format obviously manages to load CD drivers from the old system before formatting if you are writing your new system over the top of your old one, but since I was trying to avoid that, and writing to an otherwise empty disk Windows couldn’t find the drivers. Any idea what to do here? Is Cdrom.sys enough? I could put that on a diskette.

By: Geno

Geno — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:51:36 +0000

I can’t get this to work.
I keep getting the existing bootmgr only option is MSDOS, VISTA or older OS…
Only Vista worked before and the same is true now…. Did I miss a step?

By: complicated

complicated — Sat, 16 May 2009 22:36:00 +0000

WTF..this is way too complicated.. ARE YOU SERIOUS? THERE ISN’T AN EASIER WAY?

By: Ducky

Ducky — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:32:12 +0000

Erm..I have a bit of a nasty situation here. When I run C:/boot/bootsect.exe/nt60 C: it says:
“Could not read the existing bootcode from this volume. No bootcode was successfully updated” What seems to be the problem?

By: d

Sun, 10 May 2009 02:53:05 +0000

Will this work for windows 7 RC?

By: R4D

R4D — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:35:05 +0000

Can not find a bootmgr folder in the windows 7 folder.
My machine wont complete setup
“BOOTMGR is missing” is the only msg i get

By: bob

bob — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:52:28 +0000

I just realised that i dont want to format my main partition. is there any way to undo the change of the booting? cos i cant boot normally now!

thanks

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:33:52 +0000

Chris:

I’m just guessing that you ran the bootsect command while on the C: drive. Perhaps try running the command by first changing to the drive containing the virtual DVD, going to the boot folder there and then running the command to modify the C: drive. So if your DVD is at drive F: then do these commands:
f:
cd \boot
bootsect.exe /nt60 c:

This will avoid any access denied error messages caused by the inability of bootsect to lock the C: drive to make changes.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:18:23 +0000

I have used this method successfully for Vista, Win7 and Win Server 2008. In step 15, when you run setup.exe, make sure you run the one in the sources folder as directed. (There is another, smaller setup.exe file at the root of that drive. I made the mistake of running it instead. You do get an installtion to start, but it will quickly give you the error “A CD/DVD drive device driver is missing…” So just follow the instructions given.)

Thanks for the technique.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:34:02 +0000

Hey i have question about step 8 and 9.
when i enter C:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 C: into cmd, i get an unsucessful message but when i enter C:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 C:BDCP i get a message to do something but i don’t what do can u explain those steps more clearly?

By: Colindias

Colindias — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:15:50 +0000

THERE IS AN EASIER WAY!
If you have it installed on a secondary machine, say one WITH a DVD drive, EASILY winclone the entire boot camp partition to an external harddrive, connect the HD to the computer without a drive you wish to install windows 7 on, partition using boot camp, then restore the Winclone image to the partition, there you have it, a perfect copy of your already installed Windows 7 on a new machine, works easily, and saves time!
~cp

By: eu

eu — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:20:53 +0000

By: jekbradbury

jekbradbury — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:36:30 +0000

You definitely do not need to have a USB key big enough to hold Windows 7. Just use GParted to shrink the C:\ partition by ~10GB and create a new NTFS partition with the free space, then go back to windows and run setup.exe from the mounted iso. Tell it to install in the second partition. If it hasn’t done so automatically, add an entry to boot.ini for the second partition Win7 install. You now have a dual boot of your current OS and Windows 7.

By: D8

D8 — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:32:37 +0000

WTH. it says BOOTMGR is missing after formatting drive C:

Now my laptop won’t boot :C