Installing OS Question

[Serkre]

I ordered a PC from ibuypower and decided I would save some money by installing my own OS instead of paying $70 or so for Win 7 again.

I have created a bootable USB that should install 7. If I just pop that thing in there and change the BIOS start-up settings to boot the the USB, will 7 just begin installing?

(I am not sure if the technical name is 'bootable'. I just formatted the drive to NFTS and copyed over the installed filers from the Win 7 .iso)

Thanks.

[sooNAHmee]

Yeah, that should work.
If you have any problems, the simplest alternative may be to burn the .iso image to a DVD. (if you have another PC to do so)

[Serkre]

Yeah, that should work.
If you have any problems, the simplest alternative may be to burn the .iso image to a DVD. (if you have another PC to do so)

Thanks. I will make sure to try the DVD method if this one does not work out.

[seseorang]

You can NOT extract contents and copy to the device. It won't be bootable. The USB device needs to be marked bootable by software. The user can't do it

[T Rush]

I have a Win7 install USB flash drive that I made from .ISO~DVD disc
...I think I used this to make it http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
(its actually very easy to use) but yeah, just having the files on the USB stick doesn't work, it has to be able to run as a bootable drive to get anything going at all

[Mangr0v3]

You have to set up the MBR and partition flags to actually be able to boot off the USB.

[xboxer]

You need to use this:

http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool?err=t2#at2

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Windows-7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool.shtml

Then in BIOS set first boot device to USB storage or something along that line depending on what mobo you're using.