Hard Drive for installing windows?

[Playa07]

Hi, I know this might be a little stupid but I recently ordered parts for building a PC and I realized I do not have a flash drive handy. The USB drive will take another week for delivery and I was wondering if I could use the 2TB HDD that I am going to be putting in my PC to install windows? It will be connected via the SATA cable and not via USB. 

[Guest]

It won't work

[_Omega_]

sounds like it could be possible, just try it

 

[Uptivuptiz]

I've never tried it before but if you format the drive with FAT32 and make it a windows bootable drive it should work like a normal USB windows install media.

[_Omega_]

but maybe not with the MS mediacreation tool

[Deano727]

No clue about the SATA connection. But if you can get an HDD dock or an external enclosure for the HDD that interfaces via USB it will definitely work. Could also burn a CD? No clue if that's still a thing... SD card with USB adaptor also an option. Hope these help?

[_Omega_]

if the MS mediacreation tool wont let you install the ISO to a SATA drive you could try UNetbootin

[Dujith]

It is possible, but you will need another computer.

Stick in the HDD and from windows create a 4GB partition on it. Format it NTFS and assign a drive letter

Download the windows 10 ISO and unpack it on that partition.

Then use diskpart to make it bootable,(NOTE: THIS CAN DESTROY YOUR WINDOWS INSTALL, only use it if you know what you are doing)

from that you can then start the setup from the command line.

 

You could also consider via PXE (network), with AIO Boot for example.

 

 

[Deano727]

5 minutes ago, Dujith said:

It is possible, but you will need another computer.

Stick in the HDD and from windows create a 4GB partition on it. Format it NTFS and assign a drive letter

Download the windows 10 ISO and unpack it on that partition.

Then use diskpart to make it bootable,(NOTE: THIS CAN DESTROY YOUR WINDOWS INSTALL, only use it if you know what you are doing)

from that you can then start the setup from the command line.

 

You could also consider via PXE (network), with AIO Boot for example.

 

 

Windows MCT will make the drive bootable if you assign it to that partition. Also, make the partition at least 8GB.

[Dujith]

1 minute ago, Deano727 said:

Windows MCT will make the drive bootable if you assign it to that partition. Also, make the partition at least 8GB.

Were talking about a sata attached hdd. No usb. Mct will only work on usb drives. 

 

And the W10 iso is 3,5GB

[Deano727]

On 6/15/2020 at 1:11 PM, Dujith said:

Were talking about a sata attached hdd. No usb. Mct will only work on usb drives. 

 

And the W10 iso is 3,5GB

If it detects as a drive location (d; e; f; g.....etc) it could still work, the connection is not the whole story, as long as it can be booted from the correct SATA connection and partition... Speculative I agree. My comment was more that you don't need to physically make the drive bootable as MCT does that automatically.

 

As for the file size, The ISO may be 3.5GB but MS recommends you have 8GB of space for the 64 bit W10 and 4GB for 32 bit.

[Samipini]

yes of course. from my understanding, Windows media creation tool acts like a mini operating system that is designed to extract its files and install a proper operating system. If you only have one hard drive, partition the drive and install windows on the second partition. After bios asks you which partition to boot from, select Windows 10 and delete the media creation tool partition.