Need help with boot from usb hard drive

You need to create a Bootable Win7 USB stick.
Download the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the Microsoft Store or from another site online.
Use this program to create a bootable image of the original Win7 disk or ISO image that you have with you.

That ^ utility works great, it's the easiest one and works every time.

when I tried the method mentioned above it did not see my hard drive as an option to copy the iso to..i tried all usb ports. This is a 1 terabyte hard drive so it has enough space

No, not that way, get yourself a 4 to 8 GB USB stick, use the Win7 download tool to make it bootable and have the setup files on it (The program will automatically do that).
Then reboot the system with the USB stick in the USB slot and the TB HDD in another USB slot, boot from the USB stick and let it install windows on the TB HDD.
Then onwards, you will be able to boot from the TB HDD as a normal rig.

is their anyway to get into a computer..well 2 I am locked out of with out a large usb stick, because I do not have one available to me now..I only have the hard drive at my disposal. btw thx for your help

What do you mean by locked out of your computer?

I have 2 computers that I bought, both are password protected, so I was just going to reinstall windows. Thought I would do it anyway even if they were unlocked.

are the steps above still the best way to resolve my problem

Yes. they are the best way and the simplest to solve the problem.