Installing Windows on USB Drive

[zoobernut]

Hello Everyone. I work in IT but my environment has been completely mac based for the last 6 years. Now I need to start learning windows again and understanding windows 7 and 10 better.

The beginning of this is that I need to know if there is a good way to create a bootable windows 7 and 10 usb drive. What is all of yours favorite method for doing this? I don't know if I have a Win 7 iso so if there is a way to duplicate an existing laptop running win 7 onto a USB drive so I can boot from it that would be great. I do have a win 10 iso so what is your favorite method to create a bootable win 10 usb from iso?

Second issue is what is your favorite method to transfer a running system from one Hard drive to another? I need to move from a spinning disk hdd to an SSD on a couple of laptops then install the SSD's into the laptops.

I have heard Acronis is good for this but I believe I need to create that bootable USB first and install Acronis on it so I can copy the internal spinning disk drives over to the SSD's (in drive sleds).

Anyone willing to help me out get started with how to image and move OS installs around on windows machines please?

Thanks!

[Boyiee]

Google Windows Media Creation Tool and get it from Microsoft, put that on a USB. That's your bootable windows 10 install/etc.

I am pretty lightweight with my drives, I keep OS on a separate SSD and when moving PC's I just format that one and plug and play the rest. If I really need to move stuff to a new drive I either install it in the current system and copy paste or just transfer to external. I don't have any drives bigger than 500gb. Windows installs pretty fast.

[zoobernut]

Google Windows Media Creation Tool and get it from Microsoft, put that on a USB. That's your bootable windows 10 install/etc.

I am pretty lightweight with my drives, I keep OS on a separate SSD and when moving PC's I just format that one and plug and play the rest. If I really need to move stuff to a new drive I either install it in the current system and copy paste or just transfer to external. I don't have any drives bigger than 500gb. Windows installs pretty fast.

Well this is all for a larger environment than just me personally so I was looking for an easy way to create a single bootable USB drive to run actual windows on. The only thing I could see from Microsoft was either to create install media or create "windows on the go" which is a dumbed down version of windows. I was wondering if there was a way to install full complete windows on a usb drive.

These are good tips thanks!

[Hellfury]

Uhm, if it's mostly for training purposes, you could create a VM in the virtualization software of your choice and move the vm images with you, skip the problem altogether?
Windows 10 media creation tool for making the initial install

I'm not sure why you would want to transfer the system, do you have that much specifically installed software that just setting it up from scratch isn't easier, quicker and less hassle?

[Jamison]

I believe I've read they removed the ability to install Windows to a USB, but search Windows To Go which is what it is called. I'm not sure what you'll find.

For cloning I used to use Acronis. To just clone requires purchasing it and you'd install the software somewhere to make a bootable USB, but after that the software part doesn't matter. About a year ago I switched to Active Data Studio (you can buy just Active Boot Disk for cloning, or Active Data Studio is a full suite of tools) which I absolutely love. It boots to a custom windows-based PE/recovery environment and the tools have always worked for me spot on.

By the way I actively avoid Acronis at this point. Their actual software hasn't improved in many years and all the updates are focused around them selling their other services to you. The bootable USB has been fine, but the software and software backup on a host PC has actively gotten worse over time.

There'd be some freeware options too: Macrium Reflect or Clonezilla for cloning, and Hiren's Boot CD for troubleshooting. But in my opinion, if this is for work, spend the little bit of money and get something you can rely on.

Oh, Acronis advertised a feature for moving an install to "dissimiliar" hardware but I never tried it. I don't recall if Active Boot Disk does that or not. Windows 10 plays nice enough with unknown hardware and generic drivers that I don't worry about it much anymore.

[zoobernut]

The main reason I want a bootable USB is to install Acronis on it or some other similar software. When I upgrade someones computer from spinning disk to SSD I need to boot up to an environment other than those two disks to transfer. That is the primary need for this. Also having a bootable USB drive or external drive is super handy for troubleshooting issues. Been using it in the mac environment for years. Though not sure what I am going to do there moving forward as mac is making it harder to do stuff like that too.

Thanks for the suggestion of Active Data Studio I will have to check it out.

One of my jobs already owns Acronis 2010. For my other job I haven't purchased anything yet and I am just exploring the best techniques and ways to manage ~150ish machines in a windows environment vs a mac one if we decide to switch.

[Niya]

Installing a "normal" windows on USB (that will work) is not possible, period. The closest you can get is projects like Windows PE from http://theoven.org/ that use Microsofts PE images (Preinstallation Environment, the one you see when you install Win10) and add a desktop environment and other stuff so it feels similar to a normal install.

For cloning a HDD to SSD, I've been using Clonezilla for years and it works fine without any cost. Sure, you have to live with a text-based wizard, but as long as you stick to basic mode it should be simple enough to use even for folks that don't know linux/terminal commands.

[The Stig]

Installing a "normal" windows on USB (that will work) is not possible, period.

I came in to say this but I actually wasn't confident so I ducked yesterday when I saw the thread.

In this case, just cheat and buy a https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/...ute-stick.html lol
It's a stick, not USB

[zoobernut]

Hmm well I can't believe that to be true. If you have a USB drive of sufficient size it should be able to house a complete total windows installation. I mean I took the HDD outside of my laptop and booted up to it while it was in a drive sled. If that is possible then Windows can run from a USB connection to the computer. I guess I could plop a hard drive into a laptop run the install disk to install windows on that drive then take it out and put it in a permanent sled. Though I guess there would be hardware issues if I tried to boot that up connected to a different machine...

There are some aspects of windows that are frustrating. I wish the OS was more open like Mac OS.

Edit: I am not saying I don't believe you I am just incredulous. Having a portable bootable drive is so damn helpful for a variety of reasons I can't imagine performing all the stuff I need to do without one. Plus you can't clone a drive that you are booted to so how do you use a tool like clonezilla or Acronis? Do you need another complete computer and dual drive sleds? With a bootable drive you could get away with cloning a computer with less hardware.

[Niya]

Well, guess I'll have to rephrase that a little. While it might be possible to install windows onto an external HDD/USB stick, that installation will 99% of the time only work on that one specific machine it was created on. On other machines it would either completely fail because of driver and boot setup issues, or if it somehow manages to boot you'd get the nice "Windows isn't activated" message every time because it detected a hardware change.
Only way around that is to not use a "normal" windows installation but a "WinPE on steroids" build that is meant to be run from external media.

And about cloning: CloneZilla comes as an ISO image that you can burn to CD/DVD or prepare a bootable USB stick from. It's based on a live linux system, so you just have to attach the source and target drive to your system (internally via SATA/M.2/whatever or externally via USB enclosure) and boot from the Clonezilla medium.

[zoobernut]

Well, guess I'll have to rephrase that a little. While it might be possible to install windows onto an external HDD/USB stick, that installation will 99% of the time only work on that one specific machine it was created on. On other machines it would either completely fail because of driver and boot setup issues, or if it somehow manages to boot you'd get the nice "Windows isn't activated" message every time because it detected a hardware change.
Only way around that is to not use a "normal" windows installation but a "WinPE on steroids" build that is meant to be run from external media.

And about cloning: CloneZilla comes as an ISO image that you can burn to CD/DVD or prepare a bootable USB stick from. It's based on a live linux system, so you just have to attach the source and target drive to your system (internally via SATA/M.2/whatever or externally via USB enclosure) and boot from the Clonezilla medium.

Thanks for this. Like I said. I was a windows guy growing up through college and beyond (worked in a windows environment for 6 years at my first job out of college) but I have been mac for the last 6 years at home and at work. I have never done IT in a windows environment so I am really trying to pick all this stuff up quickly and learn. I know a lot about how to manage windows once it is installed but the imaging and cloning of machines bit is new to me.

It seems that most of the imaging/cloning softwares come with some sort of bootable media that isn't a full OS but enough to run their software so you can boot to a separate device and successfully clone your drive.

One last question. Since DVD's suck and are fragile is there a way to "burn" an iso such as comes with clonezilla to a USB stick instead? Those are easier to transport in my bag without issues.

[Hellfury]

look into this, see if you find something you like

https://www.pendrivelinux.com/univer...easy-as-1-2-3/

(also: https://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php )

[Niya]

We've been using Rufus at work for quite a while now (since we have to prepare setup/live USB sticks for different systems) and it works just fine.

Oh, and just to mention it: if you want to clone a windows system in the sense of multiplying it to several systems, read up on what Sysprep does and how to use it. Otherwise you can run into nasty issues.

[zoobernut]

We've been using Rufus at work for quite a while now (since we have to prepare setup/live USB sticks for different systems) and it works just fine.

Oh, and just to mention it: if you want to clone a windows system in the sense of multiplying it to several systems, read up on what Sysprep does and how to use it. Otherwise you can run into nasty issues.

That totally makes sense. I remember now the flexibility of being able to get parts from anywhere for windows also comes with the caveat that you can't swap OS disks around and not run into issues. Not only that but Windows is licensed/purchased not free. I guess I don't need a full OS on an external drive what I want is more like a paired down OS that can boot up any hardware and have a couple of utility softwares installed on it. For things like cloning disks and troubleshooting hardware vs software issues etc.

Like I said I am just starting to get into windows from a professional perspective and I am trying to find parallels between what I need to do for OS X and windows and how to do them in a windows environment.

I am in charge of a thin client system now in a windows 8 environment so I am trying to learn as fast as I can.

I really appreciate everyones expertise and help here.

[Hellfury]

I haven't read up on the fine print here, but there are also versions of windows that work on a subscription model, where the hardware isn't really relevant, the windows is tied to the user. Client rather than device license.
We use this at work (Microsoft 365, not to be confused with Office 365, which is _part of_ Microsoft 365). I never thought of it it this fashion before,but might be worth looking into?

[zoobernut]

So the old IT guy left me a bag full of thumb drives. Several of which are bootable with imaging softwares on them. I do have Active Data Studio as suggested above. The issue I am having now (forgive me for I am just learning the work flow here) is that if I use the straight disk clone it works but then the partition sizes stay the same and there is a bunch of unallocated disk space on the new larger SSD.

If I use the partition tool to clone the partitions over one by one and make sure to expand the primary partition as big as possible then the computer will not boot to the new disk. At first I was getting the "cable loose" error and then I got the "hardware configuration issue" error.

Any ideas? Can I use the straight disk clone and then use another tool to adjust the primary boot partition to be bigger?

[Hellfury]

uhm, windows' built in disk manager lets you expand partitions if they're just there as "blank space", so try that
(just right click the start menu button and choose disk management)

[Niya]

Aye, as long as you don't have any funky partition layouts like some laptop manufacturers use (recovery/driver partitions after the windows partition) the default layout should always be that you have 1 or 2 boot/EFI partitions at the beginning and then the Windows partition. That can be expanded with the graphical disk management hellfury mentioned.

If you have a "funky" layout you'd have to move partitions around. Depending on what kind of partitions you have it could work to clone all partitions but the one(s) after the Win partition, expand Win and then clone the other patition(s) into the remaining space. Or clone all at once and use a program like Minitool partition wizard to move partitions that are in the way for expansion. Just know that moving partitions can easily take several hours.

[zoobernut]

The problem is the primary boot partition is sandwiched between two hidden windows partitions. One I don't know what it is but it is very small and the other is the recovery partition. Does windows create those automatically if they don't exist? If I try to copy them over one by one using a partition tool then the laptop won't boot to it and gives the hardware mismatch error. How do I move the main boot partition over to the unused space?

[Niya]

Usually the default layout (when you let Windows set up the partitions) is:
100-500MByte EFI system partition (contains the boot loader)
~1-5GByte recovery partition (not always present)
Windows partition

Windows apparently labels the recovery partition as an "OEM partition" in disk management. In rare cases this one can also be placed behind the windows partition.
And especially on laptops you can have 1+ additional partitions that contain drivers and additional stuff from the manufacturer.

For a successful boot you should only require the ESP and the windows partition.

Could you show a screenshot of what disk management shows about the partitions? Maybe that can make it easier to tell what kind of partitions you have.