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I have three computers, a Win7 laptop, a Mac and an Ubuntu box. The Win7 laptop has just died and to try to get it running again I have to run various Win7 apps, like HDScan and Intel's raid manager IAStorUI, but I can't get Windows to load.
How do I create a CD or a USB stick that will boot into a Windows GUI? My rescue disk lets me run command prompt commands, but not any app that needs a GUI.
I have looked at Oracle's virtual box and there seems to be a release called portable-virtualbox but I need Windows to run the install exe.
Are there any other solutions? e.g. iso images I can just burn to disk?
This question had been marked as a duplicate of Windows OS on external hard drive, but for new potential answerers, my situation is different from that question and is not covered by the answers there. To clarify:
I need a solution that I can set up using either Mac or Ubuntu, because I do not have a functional Windows OS anymore.
Anything like Win2Go or Windows to Disk does not help because I can't run them.
GRUB does not provide a solution for creating a bootable Win7 USB stick.
Neither does installing VMware on Linux mint.
BartPE is no longer available.
Adam
Posted 2016-09-28T12:54:33.747
Reputation: 178
Also see Can I install Windows OS (Windows 7) on a removable USB hard drive?
– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2016-09-28T15:51:30.040@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 The point of the question is that I need to be able to create the Win7 system on the USB key on a non-Windows OS, either OSX or Linux. The other questions you found don't specify this and all their solutions are exclusively Windows-based, needing software that runs on Windows, which I can't do. So please can you un-mark this as duplicate? – Adam – 2016-09-28T16:38:15.513
It comes down to this, it's the same question (whether the existing answers are useful to you or not), hence it's a dupe. Specific to the question at hand: Windows doesn't like being installed on a portable drive, unless you use Windows To Go, or some hack-job which may or may not be able to be done from Linux/Mac. As several other (valid) answers point out, you're easiest bet (short of using Windows To Go) is probably to install Windows into a VM that you store on the HDD and then use the appropriate compatible hypervisor for each OS (ie: VirtualBox has flavors for each of your target OSs). – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2016-09-28T16:47:45.630
You can always request if be reopen and folks will vote and it may get reopened if enough people thinks it's worthy of having a separate question. Or better, take some of your rep and place a bounty on the existing question, requesting more Mac/Linux-centric answers – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2016-09-28T16:48:57.223
@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 it is not an exact duplicate of an existing question. It is more specific, precisely because the existing answers on the more general questions were not useful to me. I don't think placing a bounty on the question with instructions for a more specific answer would be any more constructive than asking my question as I did. It would be useful if you could turn that comment into an answer - 'using an appropriate compatible hypervisor' – Adam – 2016-09-28T17:12:26.830
@Adam, the duplicate has 6 answers and it looks like several (Shivansh Vij and Whirl Mind, maybe That Brazilian Guy), don't require operational Windows-based software. We want to avoid people posting the same answers over and over. To do that, your question needs to clearly differentiate itself so that it doesn't attract the same answers. You've done that to some degree with your edit. Please also address why the non-Windows answers won't work. If you can do that, I'll vote to reopen. – fixer1234 – 2016-09-28T18:25:03.417
@fixer1234 the answer involving
GRUBdoes not provide a solution for creating a bootable Win7 USB stick at all. Neither does Whirlmind's solution of installing VM ware on linux mint. That Brazilian Guy's solution depends onBartPEwhich is no longer available. – Adam – 2016-09-28T20:00:11.247@fixer1234 thanks for re-instating the Q. – Adam – 2016-09-29T09:07:52.773