91 - Replace Windows XP/Vista/Win7 with Windows 8 without a DVD or USB drive

1. Boot to Windows and make a new empty 4GB primary NTFS partition at then end of the drive (using Vista Disk Manager can shrink/extend ptns).

If you have XP then download and install EaSeus Home Partition Manager.

It is best to have the 4GB partition at the end of the disk drive.

e.g. If you current partition arrangement is:

then first shrink the 490GB Windows partition as much as possible using Windows Disk Manager (Start Menu - Computer - Right-Click - Manage - Disk Management).

Next create a 486GB primary partition named DUMMY

Next create a 4GB primary partition and format it (Quick Format - NTFS). This can be called Win8Inst or any name you like.

we now have:

Thus the new 4GB partition is now at the very end of the drive.

2. Copy the contents of the whole Win8 Install/Setup DVD to the new 4GB partition. To do this you need either the (downloaded) ISO file or perhaps network access to another PC which has a DVD drive containing the Windows 8 Setup DVD. If you just have the ISO file you can mount the ISO file as a volume using SlySoft VirtualCloneDrive or Olof's ImDisk application, or extract the contents using 7Zip or WinImage, etc.

3. Install grub4dos onto the hard disk MBR (you can do this easily by downloading RMPrepUSB, hit Ctrl+F5 and then click on the Install grub4dos button - hit Enter and click OK when prompted to copy over the grldr file)

4. Copy the C:\grldr file to the new 4GB partition - IMPORTANT: Make sure the file grldr is on the root of the 4GB partition or it will not boot next time!