Installing or Copying PC's OS to a USB

[Captain Zark]

Is it at all possible to take the OS, already installed, from your PC and put it onto a USB? I plan on getting Windows 10, but want to be able to revert to Windows 7 if I don't like it. (I don't have the computers disks, as it was a hand-me-down birthday present from my older sister.)

 

[USAFRet]

No, not really. And you really, really don't want to try to run a Windows OS from a USB drive. Like watching paint dry.

Plus, if you upgrade that Windows 7 to Windows 10, you can't run both at the same time. You don't get Windows 10 and get to keep an operational Windows 7.

What you can do is make an image of that Windows 7 partition on a different drive of sufficient size.
Then upgrade to Win 10.
If you don't like the Win 10, you can either use the built in functionality to rollback, or use that image you made to overwrite the drive.

 

[Captain Zark]

What you can do is make an image of that Windows 7 partition on a different drive of sufficient size.Then upgrade to Win 10.

So I'd need another Hard Drive, or could I use a USB?

 

[USAFRet]

What you can do is make an image of that Windows 7 partition on a different drive of sufficient size.Then upgrade to Win 10.

So I'd need another Hard Drive, or could I use a USB?

Well, you'd need a USB stick of sufficient size. But yes.

 

[Captain Zark]

About how big?

 

[USAFRet]

About how big?

How big is your current C partition?
You can't take 'just the OS'.

 

[Captain Zark]

It's about 111 GB's. But a good deal of it is game related or unimportant junk.

 

[USAFRet]

It's about 111 GB's. But a good deal of it is game related or unimportant junk.

A $50 external HDD would work better than a small USB stick.

But whatever...you need a drive of sufficient size.

 

[Captain Zark]

Very well. On the bright side, I get an external Hard Drive out of it. Any recommended Hard Drives?