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Possible Duplicate:
Install Windows 7 from USB

I got a new netbook which came pre-installed with Windows 7 Starter and full of promotional crapware.

I am interested in somehow extracting the clean portion of Windows 7 on that netbook, saving it to a USB disk, then wiping out the entire drive and then installing this clean Windows 7 only, without all the bagage.

How do I do that? Is there a step-by-step guide that allows me to perform this safely?

If this helps, the netbook model is Acer aspire one D255E.

Community
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an00b
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2 Answers2

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Create a partition on a thumb drive:

  1. First, you’ll need the DiskPart utility on the system you will use to prep the thumb drive. This is a free disk partitioning utility that is likely already installed on your Windows system. If not, you can download DiskPart here.

  2. Launch the DiskPart utility by typing diskpart at the Start Menu.

  3. Then run the list disk command to check the status of your drive.

  4. Now run select disk 1 where the "1" is actually the corresponding number of your USB drive.

  5. Run clean.

  6. Once the thumb drive is clean, you can run create partition primary.

  7. Now make the partition active by entering active.

Format the partition by FAT32 and assign a letter:

  1. Then you need to set up the file system as Fat32 by running format fs=fat32 quick (quick, of course, specifies that you want to perform a quick format to speed up the process).

  2. Entering the assign command gives the USB drive a drive letter, making it easy to access from Windows Explorer

Copy the installation files onto the thumb drive:

  1. Then you can copy everything from the Windows 7 installation DVD onto the USB key (a simple drag and drop will do).

  2. Now you can insert the thumb drive into the system you want to install Windows 7 onto and boot the system. The installation will now proceed as usual—but faster.

Tamara Wijsman
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kobaltz
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an00b, Other than your data, there is probably not much that you can copy to a USB drive that will probably help you unless there is a recovery partition.

The easiest way would be to see it you can get a Windows 7 Starter DVD, possibly from the manufacturer (for about $20 usually), and then you can reinstall with your legal key, which is affixed to the computer.

In the alternative, if you have any friends with TechNet or MSDN, you can legally use the ISO images they can download there to make a DVD. Your key is what gives you the right to use Windows, not the DVD. You could then use that to create a bootable USB drive if you don't have an external DVD player.

studiohack
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KCotreau
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