Next type this command to mark your hard drive as bootable:Īssuming that e: is the drive letter of attached hard drive, where the Windows 8 installation files are copied to.

The commands above will set the first partition of your attached hard drive as active.

In the Command Prompt, type in the following commands, and press Enter key after typing each command.

Right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. In Windows 7, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories.

Open the Command Prompt with admin privileges.

Now you’ve successfully copied all contents of Windows 8 ISO to your hard drive. When this is done, the extraction dialog will automatically close.

Now the extracting progress window will display.

Click … button to select the root path of the attached hard drive.

Next you need to specify where the destination should be.

After installing 7-Zip locally, right-click on your Windows 8 ISO image and select 7-Zip -> Extract files. This can be done using the freeware 7-Zip.

Now we need to copy the setup files from Windows 8 ISO to your hard drive.

From there you can repartition your hard disk and create a primary partition for install Windows 8 later. Click on Disk Management in the left-hand panel, you’ll see the attached hard drive shown as Disk 1.

The Computer Management console will appear as shown below.

Open the Disk Management utility by right-clicking on the My Computer icon on the desktop (or Start Menu) and selecting Manage from the drop down menu.

First connect your hard drive to another working computer as a slave/second drive.

Part 1: Copy Windows 8 Installation Files to Hard Drive It also works with Windows 10, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. This method requires you to create a bootable hard drive from Windows 8 ISO image, so you can then install Windows 8 without formatting.

But, what to do if you don’t have a USB drive in hand, or your optical drive doesn’t work properly? Here we’ll show you how to install Windows 8 directly from a hard drive, without using a CD or USB drive. It’s super easy to install Windows 8 from a USB drive or a CD/DVD.

Create a partition windows 8