Install from harddisk, boot from usb?

Hi, I have bought new hardware and just found out that the new motherboard does not have pata (ide) ports. Since I only have >4Gb flash sticks and no optical drive, I need to boot from usb stick and install from harddrive. I have searched but can't hit the right search parameters because I keep getting guides for either usb sticks <4Gb or from installing from an already installed windows.

The problem is that the new motherboard can not read the raid 0 array I have my current windows installed on so I need to make a new array and therefore have to boot somehow to access the second harddrive where I have windows 7 dvd extracted.

But how?

Hi and welcome!

Should be fairly simple. First, set your RAID up on new motherboard and also have the RAID driver available on floppy or the hdd with Windows install files on it (or anywhere else, like floppy or usb stick.) Set the motherboard to boot from the hdd with the extracted DVD install files. Also, make sure that the partition on the hdd with install files is marked active. You can use a boot cd or dvd like gparted to do so, if not already set active.

While installing Windows, point it to the RAID driver and on ya go.

Are you saying you have less than 4GB flash thumb drives or greater than 4GB?

You use the > sign which means "greater than" in the first part.

Sound like you really need to take back some hardware and get the correct hard drives, motherboard or whatever.

So if I understand you right, all I have to do is place the contents of the dvd on a partition in root, so the bootmgr can boot the system, aside from setting said partition as active?

Nib I used both signs. >4Gb should mean less then 4Gb and <4Gb more then. Did I get them mixed up?

Yup! Don't worry though, it's all good.

Why don't you borrow or buy a 4GB flash drive? That would be easier and faster than going through that other stuff. You will probably have to reformat your RAID array though.

I don't know that much about RAID because I don't use it. Too many issues, problems, hiccups, etc., but that's my personal opinion.

Correct, yup.

But like I also said, create the RAID before starting install and also have the RAID driver ready.

Thanks both of you. Just did a test install on an empty partition on the old hardware, worked perfectly. So now on to the new hardware.
One thing I had to do to get it to boot was to run the bootsect /nt60 drive: command on the drive with the dvd content

Well that was more troublesome then I had hoped for. First the windows installer would not read folders outside the installer image so I had no access to the drivers since at this point I had deleted the array. I used my laptop to download the drivers again to my flash drive and then I could install.

What I have been trying to get rid off the past two hours is the boot menu. I have want a single boot system so I would like to know what bcdedit should look like for that to happen.

Current config:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=G:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {a2595844-ca8d-11df-b882-87df27238ee1}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {a2595846-ca8d-11df-b882-87df27238ee1}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {a2595844-ca8d-11df-b882-87df27238ee1}
nx OptIn