Installing windows install files onto an external drive for further installation?

[hoorah]

Hey all,

I have a system I'm tinkering with that was given to me with no optical drive and only SATA ports. The hard drive is blank and I'd like to install windows on it.

I know how to install windows using a USB key and have done so before, however, it appears I've misplaced both of my 4GB USB keys, so I had to order some new ones.

In the meantime, I was wondering if it were possible to install the setup files onto the hard drive using my USB-SATA drive dock on my laptop, then drop the drive in the other machine, boot, and finish installing? My biggest concern is messing up the current installation of windows on my laptop. I don't want the installer to mess with the laptops bootup configuration.

Since my new USB keys will be here in a few days, its not an absolute requirement to do it this way, just curious about the method and if it might make similar installs easier in the future. Thanks.

 

[corkyg]

If subject system's BIOS allows USB booting, the dock or an external should work OK. That that case, the initial boot up and install sequence copies essential files from the install drive to the target system drive. This then allows for reboots from the system drive. OTH, if it for some reason does not work, you should be good to go as soon as the new thumb drives arrive.

 

[hoorah]

If subject system's BIOS allows USB booting, the dock or an external should work OK. That that case, the initial boot up and install sequence copies essential files from the install drive to the target system drive. This then allows for reboots from the system drive. OTH, if it for some reason does not work, you should be good to go as soon as the new thumb drives arrive.

And doing so isnt going to mess with the MBR of the main hard drive in the first computer? Sorry if this is obvious, but its been quite some time since I visited the intricacies of boot drives and what was required for a drive to boot.

Also, I was thinking more along the lines of using the installer in windows of the good machine similar to if you were doing an in-place clean install, where windows copies the files onto the main hard drive so the system can boot into the real installer on reboot, only doing so with a second drive and not touching the first.

I thought if that worked, it would make testing systems out in the future much simpler. For example - pop a drive into the dock, mount the image for whatever version of windows you'd like to test (7, 8, WHS2011, etc), install setup files onto docked drive, then drop docked drive into wherever it was going - no need to format a USB key, and should be considerably faster.