Install from USB partitioned drive?

Hi guys,

Wondering if anyone can tell me if this is doable. So I bought myself a 250gb m.2 sata ssd, and put it into the Silverstone MS09 m. 2 to USB enclosure to use as a USB thumb drive. My plan was to have a partition of around 10GB that I would use rufus to create a boot media on to do nice quick clean installs when I need to, another partition of around 20gb that will hold all my, notes docs exe files and other things I need after reinstalling windows, and then the remaining 200GB will just be my storage if I'm moving files around ect.
When I tried to create the boot media with rufus it says disk partitions W X Y will all be destroyed when I do this, and I cannot find a way to make it see partition X only let's say....
So really I'm asking is there any way I can do what I want to do, would creating boot media with rufus and then shrinking the volume to 10gb and repartitioning the unallocated space work, will Windows recognise this at all?

Thanks for reading my problem I hope I have been reasonably clear on what I'm looking for, if not I'm happy to provide more info if needed :)

Thanks in advance!

From what I've read on other threads recently, you don't need to use Rufus to create Win 10 installation media. You should be able to mount the Windows ISO and just copy all the files to the USB partition. If you want to boot on a legacy system, you would need to mark the partition as Active in Diskpart. If not using a legacy system, you don't even have to do that.

Never done it that way myself, just reporting what I've read here.

When you download the iso it gives you an option to make a iso or bootable usb/dvd. there is realy no point in doing what you want as the iso changes all the time so its simpler to just download the latest. As there is a major update in October your iso will be out of date anytime soon

Hi,

Well thanks for the quick response there!
Hmm had no idea rufus wasn't needed and that I could just drag and drop the files, that's crazy simple! So I can literally create a partition drag drop and reinstall directly from that, I'm amazed, this would completely solve my issue! Huge thanks for your reply :)

Can anyone else verify this is correct? No disrespect intended to @ignatzatsonic at all, but I like to be careful double check things and was untested solution.

Hi thanks for your input @Samuria, yeah I know the iso gets updated but only majorly twice a year so updating the iso to my USB once every 6 months is no issue, allows me to always have most recent version in my pocket incase i or a friend needs it and will be a lot better than carrying the USB I got from Microsoft in April this year with 0316 on it IIRC!
This just let's me have everything on 1 stick, boot image, software and info and general storage, kept on different drive letters but the same device, I know where everything is :) a good solution for my needs.

Samuria said:

there is realy no point in doing what you want as the iso changes all the time

Not really pointless. Once you have the thing booting you can just replace the contents of your partition containing the ISO with contents of latest ISO and leave the others (partition with programs etc) untouched. It is what I do (but with USB stick not SSD).

Thanks for all the info guys, really helpful and really fast :) Well my PC is pretty new built in April this year. But can't see myself using more than 3 partitions on a 250gb drive so the MBR should suit my needs just fine as it seems to be the simpler option of the 2...
Will have a play later today and see if I can get everything going.
One final question before I do tho, is Win 10 disk management sufficient for this or is it worth getting a partition manager to make things more simple or add features ect?

Thanks again, will report back!

Kyhi said:

You CAN create an UEFI partition (For Boot Files)
Then partition the disk with a 10GB partition (For Bootable Setup Media)
Then use BCDedit to write the boot files for the 10gb partition to the UEFI partition..

bcdedit is not required to just make a SSD bootable to install Windows.
@557953,

Are you wanting to boot it on a legacy BIOS computer (or CSM mode), or in UEFI mode?

If legacy BIOS (or CSM mode), and this is also compatible with UEFI the SSD needs to be:
MBR partitioned
FAT32 marked as active
Remaining partitions can be however you want
Mount the Windows 10 ISO file and copy all the files and folders to the active FAT32 partition.
That's it, this will boot in both legacy BIOS (or CSM mode) and UEFI!

If you need GPT partitioning, it will only boot in UEFI mode:
GPT partitioned
FAT32 partition (can't mark partitions active with GPT)
Remaining partitions as you like
Mount the Windows 10 ISO file and copy all the files and folders to the active FAT32 partition.
That's it!

When you want to update the Windows installation files, all you have to do is copy the mounted new ISO files and folders into the FAT32 partitioning. I prefer to reformat just that partition first, then copy; or you can just overwrite the existing files.

Hi @ NavyLCDR thanks for all the info in your post!
My PC is uefi on Z370 chipset, but as I have no need for more than 4 partitions I'm happy to use MBR for my SSD :)
Have linked to a screenshot of the drive as shown in Win 10 disk management, maybe you can confirm everything seems to be in order? In the (W:) fat32 partition I extracted the downloaded win10 iso files to.

Thanks