How to move Windows 7 boot files to another drive/partition and make it bootable

This procedure can also be used to make a bootable USB flash drive or external HDD.

Let's assume the destination drive/partition is mapped to drive H:.
It is recommended that the destination partition is formatted as NTFS (could be also FAT32).
Only primary partitions can be made bootable !
This can be done using Visual BCD Editor like this:
(you could use also "Dual-boot Repair" tool which can run also in Windows XP)

1. Select Menu - Repair - Disk Management (or just shortcut F10).
In Disk Management mark drive/partition H: as active. (Right-Click drive H: and select "Mark Partition as active")
Windows always boots to active partition !

2. Select Menu - Repair - Repair Boot Records (or just shortcut F11)



Select Drive H:, Vista/7, thick Force and Fix MBR check boxes and confirm.
This will write a Vista/7 MBR and PBR (Master and Partition Boot Record).

3. Select Menu - Repair - Repair BCD (or just shortcut F12).
 


 Select for BCD Drive - H:, and for Win 7 Folder - c:\Windows ( this is your Windows 7 folder - change c: if Windows 7 is on another drive ! ) and confirm.
This will create bootmgr and \boot folder (with BCD inside) on drive H:.
In BCD (Boot Configuration Data store) a default loader for loading your Windows 7 system is created also by this operation.

If you reboot the boot files just created on drive H: will be used.
That's all, enjoy !

Note 1:
This procedure can be used for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Also a USB drive can be made bootable using this procedure.
In a multi boot system always select the latest Windows version folder in Repair BCD ! (if you have Windows 7 and 8 - select Windows 8 !)

Note 2:
To add boot loaders for other Windows operating systems (XP, Vista, 7, 8) use shortcut F9 - all is done automatically after user confirmation.
shortcut F9 = "New automatic XP, Vista, Windows 7 loaders" - this functionality is unique in Visual BCD.

Source page: click here