Boot from USB External harddrive.. 1

[browneye]

Hi,
I have Toshiba A75-2292 Laptop with Windows XP Home os. For some reason I need Windows XP Pro...I have lots of data on my laptop so i cant have risk upgrading windows xp home to pro..I bought 200gb external usb hardrive..Now I am trying to install XP Pro on Ext harddrive and boot from there..I could complete one round of setup ie it copies xp pro file on ext hdd and it need reboot to configre. When I reboot some how it gives me blue screen and i cant go any further. I tried to read earlier posts here..doesnt give me clear idea.. Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance..

 

[garebo]

Im wondering, or thinking that if you have your notebook bios set to boot from cdrom only then you might get that error.
You want to make sure your notebook is set first to boot from cdrom, then second to boot from this external usb drive. This must be set in bios and you didnt mention that you have done this.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[garebo]

Sorry, i forgot to mention also:
Your bios may be set to boot from cdrom first and second to boot from c drive or ide drive, when, of course, you want it to boot from cdrom first, then boot from external usb drive second. After it copies the files and goes to reboot you could enter bios and remove first boot from cdrom and change it to first boot from external usb drive.
At least i know i have done that with ide drives.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[franklin97355]

Why not use the external drive to back up your data and then reformat and load xp pro on the internal one?

 

[browneye]

garebo,
The order my setup of BIOS is
1..External Hardrive
2..CDROM
3..HDD
You think changing order it would work?
Thank you for you input..Appriciated!

 

[browneye]

Yes..I could use External Drive as a backup..but i need both operating system..Becasue formating & reinstalling would take too much time.I am trying to avoid it.

 

[jfc1003]

Upgrading XP Home to XP pro is a valid upgrade path. I have done it many times. Simply boot the machine to the XP Pro CD, choose the option to install Windows, not recover. Then Windows setup goes out and checks for existing OS installations. It will find your Home version and give you the option to repair the existing XP (Home) installation. Windows XP Pro then install right over the Home edition and does so very quickly as all the drivers are already there.

It is actually quite painless. I have never lost data or had a problem.

 

[browneye]

Well..I was trying to install Visual Studio 2005 in Home Edition & somehow I messed it up..Now it wont let me allow to install it again on home edition..I think I was trying to uninstall and again restall because my help wont work...While doing that I unistalled .Net Framework first before uninstalling Visual Studio..something like that..Now it wont let me reinstall VS 2005..

 

[garebo]

Browneye, what I meant was to have your boot order this way to start:

cdrom
external (this is your usb of course)

Then run the install. When it goes to reboot, at that time, before anything else can happen, go into your bios and change the boot sequence to external first and nothing else.
I have found that has helped me out in the past.
Still, i have to agree with other people. I wouldnt want my os to be booting from usb as its not as fast and not as reliable as ide. I think i have it right here, but at the very least its not as reliable.
Why not try it again, to install the win xp pro over the win xp home? Failing that, you could even start over from the beginning, save the data you want to save to your external usb and start over?





Good advice + great people = tek-tips