Easier to buy a cheap USB stick. 4GB would do it I think. If iot's Windows 10, the tool on the MS website will make it bootable and sort it automatically. Or for older versions there is a MS tool to make it bootable anyway
Right so the free Windows software wouldn't recognise my external hard drive, nor would Rufus. PowerISO worked perfectly though, and I am currently testing the external hard drive on my laptop. Seems to be installing so far! Will do it on my new PC if all is well
Worked on my laptop for anyone interested, it was a Seagate hard drive. So if you happen to get one in the future and use it for the same purpose, PowerISO works. Time to finally install an OS on my PC
sometimes you gotta turn off uefi or tell sata to clear off in bios when installing some older o/s. Then renable them with drivers later or install can crash.
Unfortunately, I'm having a bit of trouble with my USB keyboard. It doesn't turn on until the start up is done and I can't access the bios to change boot order. I've ordered a USB to PS/2 adapter for my keyboard, just hope that works.