I have already abandoned the DVD drive for a year, and the trends in netbooks indicate the correctness of the decision. But before me there was a question how to install an OS without a DVD. The flash drive died out of place, and when I went to the store to buy a new one, an external Seagate Expansion drive accidentally caught my eye, the 250Gb version of which cost just 500 rubles more than an 8Gb flash drive (2323 rubles). And the size and the whole of which is not very embarrassed by the pocket of the jacket.

Dimensions: 141 x 18 x 80 mm
Weight: 0.16 kg

But as it turned out, installing Windows 7 with USB HDD does not work in the same way as USB FLASH. Having understood and tested performance, I share information with you.
It works like desktop PCs, laptops, and netbooks.

• HDD Preparation
• Cutting and preparation of sections HDD;
• Copy Windows 7

HDD Preparation

You can make a boot disk, install Windows 7, and then erase it and continue to use the HDD for your needs. Or make it much more convenient:
If you do not mind the 4 gigabytes of space on the External HDD, then you can cut the disk into two parts, in our case I did just that, giving one part to the Windows 7 distribution, which will always be at hand.

Cutting and preparation of sections HDD

1. Go to:
- - ( )
Find Disk 1 (if you have several hard disks in the system, find the one that is equal to the size of your External HDD)

2. Choose our our External HDD:
- Right mouse click - Delete volume;
- Right click with the mouse - Create a simple volume;
In the window that appears, select a volume size of 4300 Megabytes (Under the Distribution section), and click next,

In the next dialog, if necessary, select the drive letter, and click next. In the new dialogue, it is necessary to format our new section (FAT 32), click next and ready.

After this, it is necessary to make the created partition active, for this:
- right click on the section - make the section active.
Now our External HDD looks like this:

By the same principle we format the second partition on a disk, best of all in NTFS. but do not make it active .

Copy Windows 7

It has never been that copying a Windows distribution to a boot disk is so easy.
')
If you have a DVD:
- Just open your installation DVD, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of your External HDD;

If you have an ISO image:
- Simply open your installation ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools, select all folders and files, and copy your External HDD to the active partition;

Everything, your External HDD is ready to act as a Bootable media , it will just restart, and in the BIOS set as Primary Boot Device. certain External HDD, or simply USB HDD, depending on the type of BIOS. Save the changes, and proceed with the installation of your Windows 7.


UPD: For fans of cmd (thanks to theproof )
diskpart

list disk
select disk №
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick