I've 5 HDD and a sixth I'd like to install an image onto in order to install onto another physical computer so it has it's own MBR.
September 20, 2011 2:50 AM   Subscribe

I've 5 HDD and a sixth I'd like to install an image onto in order to install onto another physical computer so it has it's own MBR.

Synopsis below...

I'm new to having so many drives and having only windows on all of them and newish mobos. I'd like to install win7 on the 6th, be able to shove it in another box and have it boot OK (it needs it's own MBR (etc.?))
I'd love any suggestions as to how to do this while being able to access the other drives after the basics are installed, or even better being able to access all the drives the whole time as I need to install software from them.

I assume no special, e.g. non-MS software is required but if it might be, please let me know. I'm just trying to get a bootable installation/image onto a drive w/out disconnecting the drives I use daily just to do so. Yep - serial ATA 5 drives full, 1 empty, NO RAID. I tried to do it offline...

Synopsis: I've a coupla decent win7 inst working atm but I've a free drive and my bro has the SAME hardware system. I'm trying to install win7 and a coupla apps and cant... Maybe I'm explaining the problem to myself... wow.

Thanks very much in advance.
posted by prodevel to Computers & Internet (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
To clarify, you want to install an OS on one system, remove the main hard drive and put it in another system, and have that system work?

(AFAIK) you can't, really. Maybe -- maaayyybe -- if the hardware is exactly the same in both systems, but even then I think there will be problems due to e.g. unique IDs.

Why can't you just install the OS on the system that it will have to run on?
posted by katrielalex at 3:25 AM on September 20, 2011


The Windows installer is both stupidly designed and badly written – but it's predictable. It essentially only wants to install to C:. This means that to install Windows and have it prepare an MBR on a particular drive, changing the boot order of your drives in the BIOS is enough. Make the empty drive the top drive (or the next-topmost, with whatever the installer is running off at the top.)

If that doesn't work, it might be easiest to actually physically plug the empty drive into SATA port 0 on the motherboard. That'll make retarded old Windows elect it the "C" drive for sure.
posted by krilli at 3:25 AM on September 20, 2011


(And you can plop the drive and OS installation in an entirely new machine. It works. It reconfigures the hardware and may require a couple reboots, but it works.)
posted by krilli at 3:26 AM on September 20, 2011


Response by poster: OK, It seems (untill its put into the host) that making the new drive tops kind-of works. I'll follow up w/how it goes on the other end soon...
posted by prodevel at 5:29 AM on September 20, 2011


Response by poster: To clarify, you want to install an OS on one system, remove the main hard drive and put it in another system, and have that system work?

(AFAIK) you can't, really. Maybe -- maaayyybe -- if the hardware is exactly the same in both systems, but even then I think there will be problems due to e.g. unique IDs.

Why can't you just install the OS on the system that it will have to run on?

NO - install win7 on a subservient drive and then install in a new system.
posted by prodevel at 5:31 AM on September 20, 2011


Response by poster: ||If that doesn't work, it might be easiest to actually physically plug the empty drive into SATA port 0 on the motherboard. That'll make retarded old Windows elect it the "C" drive for sure.

That made me cackle uncontrollably! When I upgraded from 3.1 to 95 all I had to do was hide my 3.1 install under 5/10 subdirs and it worked. I felt so awesome. Almost as awesome as when I cracked Oracle Forms to let me convert their number/characters into real dates for y2k. I wish I had a job...
posted by prodevel at 5:37 AM on September 20, 2011


Response by poster: I didn't want to 'plug a drive (or 5)' but ok.
posted by prodevel at 5:38 AM on September 20, 2011


Response by poster: To be serious - no I want to install win7 onto a brand new HD, hopefully some software onto it maybe (I don't care.) and then install the physical drive somewhere else?
posted by prodevel at 5:43 AM on September 20, 2011


katrielalex has it pretty right, as far as I know. When installing windows it conditions itself to that specific hardware, so if you go moving it to another mobo be prepared to have it not function, or if it does it most likely will have issues pop up that would have been avoidable if you just installed it while it was in the new hardware.
posted by zombieApoc at 6:16 AM on September 20, 2011


If you install on one machine, and want to move it to another, it *is* possible. But the previous posts regarding Windows's affinity for the hardware it was installed on are correct.

You need to make sure that (1) the chipset is the same. That is you can't move from AMD to Intel or Intel to AMD (2) any hardware specific drivers for the new hardware need to be installed on the first computer. This can be tricky since you'll have to do it manually. Most installers won't install drivers for hardware that doesn't exist.

Then, before taking the HD out of the first machine, you have to "sysprep" it. This tells the Windows mini-installer to load on first startup and re-initialize all the drivers. Keep in mind that if you have any software on the HD that has licensing tied to hardware specs (like the MAC address for example), you won't be able to use the software on the new hardware without reactivating.

It isn't for the faint of heart, but it'll be frustrating the first few times you try, but if you plan to do this a lot or on a large scale, getting this down (Automated Windows Deployment) will be key.
posted by bfu at 7:35 AM on September 20, 2011


Response by poster: startup and re-initialize all the drivers. Keep in mind that if you have any software on the HD that has licensing tied to hardware specs (like the MAC address for example), you won't be able to use the software on the new hardware without reactivating.

It isn't for the faint of heart, but it'll be frustrating the first few times you try, but if you plan to do this a lot or on a large scale, getting this down (Automated Windows Deployment) will be key.

At least I'm not at dumb ass.
posted by prodevel at 8:05 AM on September 20, 2011


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