Easy Windows installation with HBCD tools

proteuss@sdf.lonestar.org

Introduction

One little known use of HBCD is the quick and painless installation of Windows.1 This isparticularly useful in difficult situations where additional drivers are needed (e.g. comput-ers with AHCI/SATA controllers), or computers without an optical drive, where only USBsockets are available. You can even install Windows to a computer that has neither opticaldrive or USB sockets. This guide describes step by step the installation of Windows XPvia a USB port with the utility WinNTSetup from the Mini Windows XP environment.

Preparation

It is assumed that the partition where Windows will be installed is already formated andactive (bootable). If you are starting with a raw hard disk, use a utility, such as AcronisDisk Director or Partitin Guru (both are on HBCD), to partition it, format and activatethe required partition. You need to have:

• HBCD DVD or iso image.

• Windows XP CD or iso image.

• Optionally, any drivers needed by the system but not included in the Windowsinstallation CD. e.g. AHCI/SATA drivers.

Then do the following:

• Transfer HBCD to a USB flash memory stick or drive.2

• Copy the iso image of the Windows XP installation CD to the same USB stick.3

• Copy whatever drivers are required to a directory of the same USB stick.4 If nodrivers are needed skip this step.

Notes: If you rather boot from an optical drive, use an iso image editor such as IsoMasterto add all of the above to the HBCD iso image before burning the image to a disk. If youare installing Windows 7, only copy from the installation DVD the file install.wim.

Installation

• Insert the HBCD USB flash drive, boot the computer from it and select Mini Win-dows XP (or Mini Windows 7) from the boot menu. Then start the utility Win-NTSetup found in the HBCD Programs Launcher as shown below:

1Windows 2000 to Windows 7 as well as server 2003 and 2008, 32bit and 64 bit.2Consult the document usb-instalation.pdf3Alternatively, copy the contents of the Windows XP CD to a directory in the USB stick.4Subdirectories are permitted, for example you can copy here the directories containing the drivers fromthe motherboard/graphics driver installation CD.

• Select the tab Windows 2000/XP/2003 (the other tab is for Windows Vista orlater).

• Right click1 on the Search button of the Select location of Windows installationfiles section of the utility, and seek the Windows XP iso image in the USB stick. Ifthe image is a valid XP installation disk, a label will appear indicating the version,service pack (if any), etc., of the operating system.

• Click on the Search button of the Select location of the Bootdrive section andselect the drive from which windows will boot. In most cases this is the drive whereWindows will be installed too. So select the same drive in the section Select locationof the Installationsdrive (sic.). Select a different drive only if you are creating a dualboot system. If the drive is not already formatted, click the F button and format itas needed (usually a quick NTFS format).

• It is very important that the active boot flag is set correctly. This is indicated bythe tick box BOOT FLAG. It must be coloured green.

If it is red (as shown above), before continuing any further, see the appendix for howto use the utility BootICE to correct this.

1Left click will seek a directory, do this if you have copied the setup files from the Windows XP CDROMinstead of the monolithic iso image.

• If you have extra drivers to install go to the Options section, tick Ad Drivers andlocate the drivers directory on the USB stick. Leave the rest of the settings as theyare unless you have special requirements and you know what you are doing.

• Click Setup and select to use bootice.exe to write the boot sector, as shown below:

Then OK to begin the copying the installation files to the hard drive.

• When WinNTsetup finishes, close it, remove the USB stick and reboot the computer.The installation will continue thereafter automatically.

• After installation, if required you may start the HBCD Program Launcher and usethe tools provided for activation, validation, or make genuine your new Windows.

Conclusion

If the hard drive is already partitioned (as it is in most cases) the installation entails just afew mouse clicks, and it takes no more than 10-15 minutes to install Windows XP SP3 to atypical laptop computer. The instructions can be easily adapted for other Windows OS, orfor installations via the optical drive or a second hard drive, and even for the installationof Windows 7 to a flash drive.1 I have made an 8 Gb USB bootable HBCD flash drive andI have included iso images for Windows XP and Windows 7 plus a directory with somedrivers so that I can quickly install Windows anywhere.Finally, a very difficult case is installing windows to a computer without an optical driveor a USB socket. Simply remove the hard disk and mount it temporarily (directly or viaa USB adaptor) on a machine that has an optical drive or a USB socket. Perform theinitial installation with WinNTSetup, as described above, reconnect the hard disk to theoriginal machine and boot it to complete the installation there.

1Windows XP cannot be installed in a flash drive.

Appendix: Making a drive bootable with BootICE

BootICE is a boot sector manipulation utility. It can be used to set the master bootrecord, the partition boot record and the boot active flag. Normally these should havealready been set by the partitioning utility, but we give the instructions below just in casesomething is missing.

• Start BootICE from the HBCD Program Lancher (Look in the Partition/Boot/MBRsubmenu). This will open the BootICE main window:

• Click Process MBR and from the choices presented select Windows NT 6.x MBR,as shown below, install, and close.

• Click Process PBR and from the choices presented select NTLDR boot record, asshown below, install, and close.1

1Note that for Windows Vista/7 the selection should be BOOTMGR.

• Click Parts Manage and from the list select the drive, then click Activate and close.

• Close BootICE, go back to WinNTSetup, reload the boot hard drive, check that thethree flags are green and continue with the Windows installation.