Boot a PC from an iPod?

Does anyone know if this is possible or what trouble I might have? I'm looking to install Windows 7 on my desktop and netbook, and my optical drive is failing on the desktop so I don't trust it for the install. I've copied the install files onto my ipod using my work computer. I don't really have another suitable USB device, except an external HDD. Really I could use either the iPod or HDD if they'll work, but I don't want to wipe either of them.

If I boot to a drive with the install files in the root directory and other data in folders, should Windows install properly? If not, is there another way to do this without first wiping the drive? If none of the above, would formatting the ipod and then loading it with the install files work?

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Plan C is pick up a USB DVD R/W that I can use w/ both PCs, but I'd rather not shell out for it.

If it's not an iPod Touch, iPhone, or latest-gen iPod Nano...it MIGHT work in theory. The older iPods mounted as USB Mass Storage Devices, which can be booted from if you have a recent enough PC that allows boot from a USB Mass Storage Device.

The iPod Touch, iPhone, and latest-gen iPod Nano cannot be set up as boot devices because they are formatted as HFS+ and set up as, essentially, handheld computers. They do not mount as USB Mass Storage Devices and do not have partitions easily accessible from Windows Explorer or the BIOS.

It is not as possible to just boot to DOS and run setup from there like it was in earlier versions of Windows. You might want to just pick up a new optical drive when possible.

It's easier to just buy a new optical drive,
but you could rip the cd to an ISO image and boot from that (GNU Grub 2 can boot from ISO images stored on a hard disk)

You're talking serious voodoo here, but it's possible

I'm using a 5th gen video ipod, which I know operate identical to any storage device when attached to a PC in most instances. When you enable them for use as mass storage, is that material in a separate partition from the OS and media? The device's behavior suggests that it is, which bodes well for my endeavor...

I'm picking the brains of various other forums. Based on what I've seen, I don't think an .iso is the way to go (it's not what's suggested when using a flash drive). It's definitely 100% possible (and even preferable for the faster read/write) to install from a thumb drive, but instructions I've seen suggest formatting and partitioning the drive with no other files present.

You can also definitely run Ubuntu like a Livedisk over USB from an iPod, though I'm not sure if that requires reformatting.

If results remain inconclusive tomorrow morning, I might just take a whack at it with the netbook and see what happens.

So just partition/format the thumbdrive. Copy the files over to your hard disk and then reformat and copy 'em back.

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Originally Posted by mini0991

So just partition/format the thumbdrive. Copy the files over to your hard disk and then reformat and copy 'em back.

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...if there were a thumb drive in the picture, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'd rather not purchase one just for this project, as generally my ipod fills that niche. If I'm buying new equipment, I'll probably just go for an external DVD R/W, which will cost more but have more than one use (though even an optical drive I use maybe every couple months, and could easily go without). I'm backing up the netbook now. I'm just going to pull everything but the 32-bit install files off the the iPod's storage partition (assuming it is a separate partition) and see if I can boot from it.

Eh, they're cheap and it's still handy to have one. My computer is probably the last one I'll ever buy with a floppy drive and burning entire CDs to give someone one file is kind of cumbersome and kludgy.

You could try using this program http://wintoflash.com/home/en/
I used it to installed windows 7 on my laptop, though I had a proper USB mass storage device.