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How do you install Windows 7 from an external hard drive?

I don't have a DVD ROM drive, so I copied my Windows 7 DVD (which is bootable) onto an external hard drive from another PC. However after booting with the external hard drive nothing happens!

What should I do? My external hard drive is formatted as FAT32 - is this important?

I was following these instructions.

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is any body here? – LostLord Jun 16 '11 at 14:24
What OS do you have on your "other computer"? – viking Jun 16 '11 at 14:39
@v1k1ng thanks for answer : windows 7 – LostLord Jun 16 '11 at 14:43
Try with NTFS on your external HDD. – KovBal Jun 16 '11 at 14:49
@KovBal NTFS shouldn't be a requirement. – viking Jun 16 '11 at 14:52

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Try following these instructions at Microsoft Technet. They are a bit old and intended for USB keys but should still apply.

When creating a bootable disk (of any sort), the computer reads from a portion of the disk that is not visible like standard files, thus just copying files doesn't work. See Wikipedia for more information.

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i want to change the file system to ntfs / so does the upper instructions work? – LostLord Jun 16 '11 at 15:06
You want to change which file system to NTFS? – viking Jun 16 '11 at 15:08
that external drive – LostLord Jun 16 '11 at 15:17
sorry / i did n't see previous comments – LostLord Jun 16 '11 at 15:19
i am testing ... – LostLord Jun 16 '11 at 15:19
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