In this tutorial I will show you how to convert an install.esd to an install.wim so you can use it to install windows onto a usb external hard drive. You will need to be on Windows to do this as it uses the Windows command prompt.
First you will need to download this. It is the command line tool you will be using.
1. Put your install.esd in C: (your C drive)
2. Extract ESD2WIM-WIM2ESD-v2.zip by double clicking on it and extracting it to the same location.(It does not matter where this is placed.)
3. Go into ESD2WIM-WIM2ESD-v2 folder and right click on ESD2WIM-WIM2ESD and run as administrator.
4. The command prompt will ask you to enter the location of where the install.esd file is. It should be C:install.esd.
At the top it should show Detected ESD File contains x indexes (x being the number of indexes)
The first index should work. In my case there was only one index so we will use that one.
5.Type: 1 and it will start to convert and export the install.wim. You do not need to press enter once you type 1 it will start the conversion.
Once that is done you should see the completed install.wim in the ESD2WIM-WIM2ESD-v2 folder.