Easy Windows installation with HBCD tools

proteuss@sdf.lonestar.org

Introduction
One little known use of HBCD is the quick and painless installation of Windows.1 This is
particularly useful in difficult situations where additional drivers are needed (e.g. comput-
ers with AHCI/SATA controllers), or computers without an optical drive, where only USB
sockets are available. This guide describes step by step the installation of Windows XP
via a USB port with the utility WinNTSetup from the Mini Windows XP environment.

Preparation
It is assumed that the partition where Windows will be installed is already formated and
active (bootable). If you are starting with a raw hard disk, use a utility, such as Acronis
Disk Director (on HBCD), to partition it, format and activate the required partition. You
need to have:

• HBCD DVD or iso image.

• Windows XP CD or iso image.

• Optionally, any drivers needed by the system but not included in the Windows
installation CD. e.g. AHCI/SATA drivers.

Then do the following:

• Transfer HBCD to a USB flash memory stick or drive.2

• Copy the iso image of the Windows XP installation CD to the same USB stick.3

• Copy whatever drivers are required to a directory of the same USB stick.4 If no
drivers are needed skip this step.

Note: If you rather boot from an optical drive, use an iso image editor such as IsoMaster
to add all of the above to the HBCD iso image before burning the image to a disk. Also,
if you are installing Windows 7, only copy from the installation DVD the file install.wim.

Installation
• Insert the HBCD USB flash drive, boot the computer from it and select Mini Win-
dows XP (or Mini Windows 7) from the boot menu. Then start the utility Win-
NTSetup found in the HBCD Programs Launcher as shown below:

1
Windows 2000 to Windows 7 as well as server 2003 and 2008, 32bit and 64 bit.
2
Consult the document usb-instalation.pdf
3
Alternatively, copy the contents of the Windows XP CD to a directory in the USB stick.
4
Subdirectories are permitted, for example you can copy here the directories containing the drivers from
the motherboard/graphics driver installation CD.
 • Select the tab Windows 2000/XP/2003 (the other tab is for Windows Vista or
later).

• Right click1 on the Search button of the Select location of Windows installation
files section of the utility, and seek the Windows XP iso image in the USB stick. If
the image is a valid XP installation disk, a label will appear indicating the version,
service pack (if any), etc., of the operating system.
• Click on the Search button of the Select location of the Bootdrive section and
select the drive from which windows will boot. In most cases this is the drive where
Windows will be installed too. So select the same drive in the section Select location
of the Installationsdrive (sic.). Select a different drive only if you are creating a dual
boot system. If the drive is not already formatted, click the F button and format it
as needed (usually a quick NTFS format).
• It is very important that the active boot flag is set correctly. This is indicated by
the tick box BOOT FLAG. It must be coloured green.

If it is red (as shown above), before continuing any further, see the appendix for how
to use BootICE (it is part of the tool) to correct this.
1
Left click will seek a directory, do this if you have copied the setup files from the Windows XP CDROM
instead of the monolithic iso image.
 • If you have extra drivers to install go to the Options section, tick Ad Drivers and
locate the drivers directory on the USB stick. Leave the rest of the settings as they
are unless you have special requirements and you know what you are doing.

• Click Setup and select to use bootice.exe to write the boot sector, as shown below:

Then OK to begin the copying the installation files to the hard drive.

• When WinNTsetup finishes, close it, remove the USB stick and reboot the computer.
The installation will continue thereafter automatically.

• After installation, if required you may start the HBCD Program Launcher and use
the tools provided for activation, validation, or make genuine your new Windows.

Conclusion
If the hard drive is already partitioned (as it is in most cases) the installation entails just a
few mouse clicks, and it takes no more than 10-15 minutes to install Windows XP SP3 to a
typical laptop computer. The instructions can be easily adapted for other Windows OS, or
for installations via the optical drive or a second hard drive, and even for the installation
of Windows 7 to a flash drive.1 I have made an 8 Gb USB bootable HBCD flash drive and
I have included iso images for Windows XP and Windows 7 plus a directory with some
drivers so that I can quickly install Windows anywhere.

1
Windows XP cannot be installed in a flash drive.
 Appendix: Making a drive bootable with BootICE
BootICE is a boot sector manipulation utility integrated within WinNTSetup. It can be
used to set the master boot record, the partition boot record and the boot active flag.
Normally these should have already been set by the partitioning utility, but we give the
instructions below just in case something is missing.

• Start BootICE by clicking the button on the top right side of the WinNTSetup main
window.

This will open the BootICE window:

• Click Process MBR and from the choices presented select Windows NT 6.x MBR,
as shown below, install, and close.

• Click Process PBR and from the choices presented select NTLDR boot record, as
shown below, install, and close.1
1
Note that for Windows Vista/7 the selection should be BOOTMGR.
• Click Parts Manage and from the list select the drive, then click Activate and close.

• Close BootICE, go back to WinNTSetup, reload the boot hard drive, check that the
three flags are green and continue with the Windows installation.