Boot from USB drive

[TimTang]

Hi

Has anyone ever tried booting winXP from a USB hard drive?

I've got a 20GB laptop hard drive that I've loaded WinXP64 on. It works when I install it into my laptop but not when I put it in the USB case.

Is there any way to do it?

I don't trust loading WinXP64 as my main OS right now because there are still a few compatability issues, so I'd just like to experiment using it on a USB drive.

Thanks

 

[WillShakespeare]

SUrely it wouldn't have to be the main os. You should be able to switch between them if you install to another partition on the HDD. If you have only one partition, you can resize it using an excellent tool which may even help you on the boot managing front too. It is called "Boot IT NG"
You can find it here: BootItNG

Once resized, you can then create a second, small partition for your WinXP64 OS.

As to the USB thing. I have a 256 MB one I have used to boiot linux from and also WIn98 boot disk with CDroom support, and also Anti Viruis emergency boot. However, this depended on my motherboard being able to boot from USB.

hth,

Will

 

[wolluf]

Is the machine you're trying to boot from the USB enclosure same one as you installed XP64 on? (becuase if not, you're likley having the normal driver problems you get when moving an installation).

 

[TimTang]

WillShakespeare:

I might eventually try this, but in the past I've never had success putting 2 XP's on the same drive. XP always wants to be on the first physical partition. Maybe there's some way to circumvent this but I'm not aware of it.

wolluf:

Yes, I installed the hard disk into the laptop in order to install XP64. Hardware should not be an issue.

XP doesn't like USB. I even tried my original installation in th USB case and it didn't work either.

Maybe it's a bandwidth thing? May there are better USB drivers that can handle this situation?

I've searched the net, but I guess I'm the only person in the world trying to do this!

Thanks

 

[linney]

Solving USB Boot Problems

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=28700158

http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php

Any way to boot from External USB CD drive?
thread779-1014231


"I might eventually try this, but in the past I've never had success putting 2 XP's on the same drive. XP always wants to be on the first physical partition. Maybe there's some way to circumvent this but I'm not aware of it."

The above should be possible with a parallel install of XP.

266465 - HOW TO: Perform a Parallel Installation of Windows 2000

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;266465&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

You can do the same with XP. Watch out where you install programs as many will want to in to C:/Program Files where as you may want them to go C:/Another Windows/Program Files

Or the paragraph in this article.

"To install Windows XP to a new folder (to perform a parallel installation):"

How to install or upgrade to Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316941&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

 

[bcastner]

I might eventually try this, but in the past I've never had success putting 2 XP's on the same drive. XP always wants to be on the first physical partition."

It needs to boot from the first active partition. In addition it discovers and notes during startup the boot, the system and the pagefile entries for any partitions. These need not be the same. But they have special importance to XP at startup.

You will get a sense of the issues involved from this extract from the Diskpart.exe utility: "Diskpart permits certain partition deletion operations that are blocked by the snap-in. For example, you can use Diskpart to delete MBR OEM partitions. However, these partitions often contain files that are important to the platform operation. Diskpart blocks the deletion of the current system, boot, or paging volumes and partitions."

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q313/3/48.asp&NoWebContent=1