Reinstalling Win7 Home Premium on a netbook.

[ExTruckie]

Good day oh Learned Ones.

My wife's netbook HD bit the dust and I have have to replace it, The netbook does not have a cd/dvd drive in it so, I need to install both the recovery disk for the drivers and the OS which was Win7 Home Premium. I know there is a way to deploy the OS from a network drive but I am unsure about the

recovery disk. Is there a guide that I can use to reinstall Win7 on the netbook off my network, that is how I upgraded from Starter to Home Premium? I do have a 2G thumb drive available, which sadly is just a bit too small for the iso to fit on.

I need to get things set up for when the replacement drive arrives so I can just install it and go.

Thanks.

Edited September 10, 2011 by ExTruckie

[Tripredacus]

You can use the BOOT.WIM from the DVD and put it on the USB key. You can make an XML that looks at your network drive for the INSTALL.WIM. I haven't tried something like this but I know it is possible. I am going to guess you aren't using a specific server technology?

[ExTruckie]

You can use the BOOT.WIM from the DVD and put it on the USB key. You can make an XML that looks at your network drive for the INSTALL.WIM. I haven't tried something like this but I know it is possible. I am going to guess you aren't using a specific server technology?

I haven't had to do this yet so I am a bit unsure on how to proceed.

I'm not using WAIK I guess I could. I do have a server that is running Linux with a Samba share. There is a copy of the win7 disk on the server also.

I happened to find the converter drive for my camera's compact flash drive. It is 4G and I created an iso of the win7 disk and loaded it onto the compact flash card. I still have room for 193 pictures too I will try that first, if not I'll be back to try something else. I was waiting to post the iso creation until the drive arrives. I have not gotten an shipping notice yet. but eta is Thursday. the 15th.

Edited September 12, 2011 by ExTruckie

[Tripredacus]

Oh sure, the Win 7 setup doesn't care what is on the server. It just needs a path and credentials to connect to it.

If Server 2008 can deploy Linux, why not Linux deploy Windows 7?

Definately get the WAIK.

Start with Scenario: Deploy from a Network

[ExTruckie]

Well I got the HD today and installed it and I could not boot from the usb drive so I could not load the iso of Win7.

Now I will try WAIK. This will be fun!! Since I have to go that route, I will use the recovery disk I got with the netbook, then upgrade to Home Premium.

I will report back on my progress.

[Tripredacus]

There is some trick to make a USB key boot so a Win7 ISO (contents) can be on it. I never knew the exact trick. The only USB key I have that can boot a WinPE was made with Make_PE3.

For more info on USB Windows installs, you can check out this section which is specifically for such things:

http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/157-install-windows-from-usb/

[ExTruckie]

I did a bit of searching on Google and found this, http://windows.micro...USB-flash-drive

Microsoft created this utility, I followed the instructions, and as I am write this windows is installing.

Thanks for the suggestions, but this is a far simpler solution to this problem than everything else I have read since this occurred.

Edit: I did have a small issue with activation but that is resolved.

Edited September 18, 2011 by ExTruckie