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Step 9 - Installing
from UFD and Converting A UFD to DVD or ISO Format
Scenario: Two
Computers - At Least One Bootable from USB Flash
Disk (UFD)
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- It's certainly
preferable to install Windows 7 from a UFD. It's
far faster than installing from a DVD.
Unfortunately all the computers capable of
running Windows 7 quite satisfactorily don't
have the ability to boot from a UFD.
- I'll show
you how to convert the new UFD media into an .iso
file or burn it's contents to a bootable DVD.
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One of the advantages
of Windows 7 is you can obtain pretty damn good
performance on hardware that is not all that high
end. That alone keeps a huge amount of minimally
equipped systems in use that might otherwise by
discarded due to a lack of high end hardware. Now
that you have the UFD with Windows 7 SP1 you can go
ahead and use it to install the operating system on
whatever computer you want - as long as it's able to
be booted from a UFD.
Unfortunately, a lot of older systems don't come
with a BIOS that's equipped to handle booting from a
UFD. If you find yourself in those circumstances it
isn't that difficult to take the contents of the UFD
and convert it into a bootable DVD. For those of you
who use virtual machines it's equally easy to
convert the UFD contents into an .iso file which is
very commonly used in virtual machine operating
system installations. |
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| Extract a Boot Image
File |
I'm going to keep this
simple without a lot of technical mumbo jumbo, but
basically the boot image file is what makes the DVD
bootable. The easiest way to get a boot image file
is to extract one from a DVD you already have and
know is bootable. In this case that would be the
Windows 7 DVD you used in this tutorial for the
basic install.
In this example I'm going to use IsoBuster to
extract the boot image file. IsoBuster does have a
trial version you can download and try, but it
does many additional tasks that may be of interest.
I've used it for years and highly recommend you get
the full paid version as part of your PC toolkit.
That's not a paid endorsement, just the opinion of a
long time satisfied user.
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| Once IsoBuster has
been installed, start the program and insert the
Windows 7 DVD in the DVD drive. What you actually
see see will be based on your Win 7 version, but it
should be similar to the screen capture below. In
the left pane, select the Bootable Disc entry and
then in the right hand pane, right click on
Microsoft Corporation.img. |
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| In the context menu
that opens after right clicking, click on Extract
Microsoft Corporation.img and save the file to the
location of your choice - but not to the UFD. I
recommend saving to the desktop. The file will be
used in the next step. |
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| Create the Bootable
Windows 7 w/SP1 DVD from the UFD |
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For this tutorial I'm
using gBurner to build and burn the image. The
screens will vary depending on what burning software
you use, but the steps are basically the same.
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- Copy or drag and
drop the contents of the UFD into the working
pane of the burning software.
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- Add the boot
information to the DVD. In this case, I just
clicked at the bottom where it says
"Non-Bootable" and then clicked "Add Boot
Information" to proceed.
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- Select the boot
image file (in this case Microsoft Image.img) by
browsing to it's location. In this case, gBurner
wants to use a .bif extension so I had to change
the type of files to be browsed to "All Files"
before the image file would show up, but the
file works just fine even though it's a .img
extension. Notice at the lower right of the
gBurner window the blue area where it shows
3890MB --- 100%. This will need to be reset in
the next step.
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- You can see below
the area where Non-Bootable was showing before
has now been changed to Bootable after the .img
file was loaded. On the lower right I've changed
the disc type to DVD-5 which is a standard 4.7GB
DVD and not the CD that was previously being
used. After changing the disc type it shows it
being at 87% of capacity, not 100%.
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- The last change I
made was to rename the DVD from 20110318_1841 to
Win7x64SP1 as you can see by comparing the above
and below screen captures. The only thing left
to do now is click the Burn icon on the toolbar.
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- Once the burning
process is complete, click [Exit] and you have
the bootable Windows 7 w/SP1 DVD ready for use.
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| Create an ISO File
from the Bootable Windows 7 w/SP1 DVD |
More and more users
are turning to virtual machines today. The majority
of the ones available support operating system
installations from .iso files. You don't have to
fumble around with the DVD's and the installations
are much faster. It doesn't get much easier than
this when it comes to creating an .iso image.
Just drop the Windows 7 w/SP1 DVD in the DVD drive,
choose the output image file format (.iso) and enter
a location where you want to save the file. Click
[OK] button and in a few minutes you have the ISO
file. |
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- Important Information -
The Elder Geek sites contain many articles and suggestions for
modifying the Windows operating system. I've tried these
tweaks and tips on many systems. Sometimes they work,
sometimes not. The point is, ensure you have a current,
tested backup of all system and data files and understand
how to restore the system in case something goes very wrong.
You can still yell at me, but I assume no responsibility for
your actions and use of the information and disclaim any
legal responsibility for any consequences of such actions. |
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