Install - Windows From External Hard Drive

It takes about 10–15 minutes for the copy to finish. When it’s done, your external hard drive is now a Windows installation drive.

You plug the external drive into the target computer, restart, and enter the boot menu (usually F12, ESC, or F2). You select “USB Hard Drive” or the external drive’s name. The computer boots straight into the blue Windows Setup screen — just as if you were using a USB flash drive. install windows from external hard drive

You open Command Prompt as Administrator . It takes about 10–15 minutes for the copy to finish

Some older computers won’t boot from an external hard drive via USB. And if your external drive is slow (5400 RPM), the initial boot to setup might take a minute or two. But once the Windows installer loads into RAM, speed is fine. You select “USB Hard Drive” or the external

diskpart list disk (find your external drive – be careful not to pick the wrong one ) select disk 2 (for example) list partition select partition 1 active exit