how do i copy my windows 7 dvd to my hard drive

[ClarkCline]

I plan to do a clean install of Windows 7 on my XP computer. What I have done in the past, with 98 through XP, was to copy the contents of the CD to a partition on my hard drive, then do the install from the copied files. It makes for a really fast install, as the data transfer rate is faster than from a CD/DVD. It also makes it easier to repair corrupted drivers and system files.

Does anyone know if this is possible with Windows 7, since it uses an ISO image? I know I can extract the files from the ISO, but they don't look like the file structure of Windows Xp. With Windows XP, I could start the install from the GUI and choose either a repair or a clean install before thee computer would reboot and start copying the necessary files for the operating system.

Any help will be much appreciated.

[DosProbie]

Why don't you just make a bootable usb of Windows 7, or better yet a Unattended Install of Windows 7 with all your favorite apps and drivers, updates etc pre-installed..

DP

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

At least with a "repair install" I can confirm this is indeed possible and does in fact give you the expected speed boost ( faster access to install files from HDD rather than optical ) and is likely more reliable. The nice thing is that Windows will remember the install media source file location and record it for future use. See this thread where I first wondered about this idea myself ...

Is it possible to Repair Install from a HDD? Yes it is.

First thing to note though is that was a "repair" install ( Windows is already existing and usable and my goal was to avoid using an optical disc to boot and call up the repair option, but to instead boot the existing usable Windows and then manually start the "Setup" from HDD based files on a different partition ). The main difference here is that you are one step below this, and will need to format a disk and start completely fresh. In my case at that thread it was one HDD partitioned into several disks, as is the typical Dell fashion, and one of those partitions was created by Dell to contain the install media ( RTM version ). I manually updated the partition files to SP1 install media taken right out of the ISO, essentially replacing their files with updated files.

Believe it or not, at the time I couldn't get a straight answer to this either. Even at SevenForums it appears no-one had tried this ( or else they discussed it in a buried thread I couldn't find ). If you read the links I supplied you will see that even the moderator over there wasn't 100% clear on this idea.

What you want to do is like I said, slightly different ( and I haven't done this exactly ) but logically it really should work. It would mean creating a partition to hold the files, getting them extracted to the partition. Then booting and starting the Setup.exe. One other huge difference presents itself here. In my case, as I started Setup.exe from within Windows I was therefore running the Windows portion of the dual-mode executable. In my case I got the same menu choice you would see if you inserted the CD/DVD optical media while Windows was running. You would be running most likely from a CMD processor prompt and running the "DOS-like" portion of the executable. I would expect it to be okay and automatically jump into the full install routine, but you never know.

This could be further enhanced by doing a variation on what DosProbie suggests. Customize the installer and then copy those files to the partition and then execute. But I do understand what you are trying to do here - avoiding the optical media is very sensible. Many of us have been doing exactly what you said from the Win9x era ( and even longer ).

BTW, my suggestion is that if you succeed here you might consider detailing all the steps for others, kind of a parallel guide to the one I mentioned ( mine was "Repair", yours would be a "Full" install ). Take pictures and stuff.