Install and Boot Windows 8 from a External Hard Disk

Let me point out the overall steps in this process :

1. Create a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) on External Hard Disk
2. Do a Silent installation of Windows 8 on the VHD created above
3. Restart and Configure the Installation

1. Create VHD on External Disk

I am having a Seagate Goflex Free agent of 500 GB and using Disk Management I am going to create a VHD on it.

Here the “F” drive denotes my external hard disk and there i am creating a vhd named Windows8.Specify the size you desire.

This process will take a while once finished we will find a disk at the bottom pane.Follow the following step by selecting that Disk to Initialize .

On Initializing the Disk will be appeared in the bottom pane with “Online” status.Create partition on the newly created disk with following step.

On performing above steps the Partition will be available to use as shown in figure .

2. Install Windows 8 on the VHD using PWBoot

Instead of going through series of steps with PowerShell i will use a useful utility which will install Windows 8 on the VHD created on external disk. PWboot is small utility which uses a WIM(Windows Installer Image) to install on a image.

Download PWBoot from Here.

Once Downloaded follow the process as bellow and make sure that you have extracted the ISO image of Windows 8 .The extracted file will have the WIM file which will be used as source in the PWboot .

Once installed on the VHD , make sure that the image is added as bootable device .Run command prompt in elevated mode and use bcdboot command with Windows folder in the vhd as parameter.

Run Msconfig.exe to check with boot devices .

3.Restart and Configure the Installation

Once done with installation using PWboot , restart your machine and choose your newly installed OS from the boot menu.

Then follow the installation process using simple setup options.

Once done with the settings , your system is ready to use and can boot from your external hard drive.