Boot from a External Drive - Possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard Lionheart
  • Start date Start date
R

Richard Lionheart

Hi,

I was running a three-computer workgroup: Win2kPro, Win2kAS and WinXP-Pro.
I stupidly hosed the latter two machines. I wrecked the XP machine by
making a mistake when trying to use Partition Magic to expanded XP
partition. The AS machine somehow lost NTLDR. All machines have multiple
NT partitions.

I bought an external hard drive with goal of installing an OS on that drive
using my still-working machine, then moving it successively to each of dead
machines in order to recover important data from their hard drives before
trying to reinstall OSs on them.

If that seems workable, I assume I should install Linux on the external
drive because it could read NT partitions. Id rather put XP on the external
drive when attached to my 2K machine, but fear that HAL from the 2K machine
qould be inappropriate when installing the external drive and booting from
it on the other machines.

Does any of this make any sense?

Thanks in advance,
Richard
 
Windows XP, or any other operating system,
cannot be installed on an external drive.

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Hi,
|
| I was running a three-computer workgroup: Win2kPro, Win2kAS and WinXP-Pro.
| I stupidly hosed the latter two machines. I wrecked the XP machine by
| making a mistake when trying to use Partition Magic to expanded XP
| partition. The AS machine somehow lost NTLDR. All machines have multiple
| NT partitions.
|
| I bought an external hard drive with goal of installing an OS on that drive
| using my still-working machine, then moving it successively to each of dead
| machines in order to recover important data from their hard drives before
| trying to reinstall OSs on them.
|
| If that seems workable, I assume I should install Linux on the external
| drive because it could read NT partitions. Id rather put XP on the external
| drive when attached to my 2K machine, but fear that HAL from the 2K machine
| qould be inappropriate when installing the external drive and booting from
| it on the other machines.
|
| Does any of this make any sense?
|
| Thanks in advance,
| Richard
 
Carey,

Thank you very much for your response. Did you see the reply to your
response from "pcbutts1" suggesting that I could boot Linux on an external
hard drive? Should I interpret "any other OS" to mean "any other Windows
OS", ro do you think "pcbutts1" is incorrect and I wouldn't have any
success.

I'd like to get a concensus on this before going to all the trouble on this
$150 1.6GB USB-interfaced drive. If my prospects of getting this to work
are dim, I'd rather take the drive back to Radio Shack.

Again, thanks for your response. I appreciate it very much.

Regards,
Richard
 
Hi Pavel,

Thanks for the response. I've got a 160GB USB-interfaced drive with its own
power adapter.

Regards,
Richard
 
Linux will boot and run from a thumbdrive, cd, external, internal, and
network drive. Because YOU don't know how does not make it wrong.

Booting Linux off of a USB drive.
http://www.simonf.com/usb/

Other links
Knoppix Live Linux CD : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44
Red Hat Linux : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=7
Mandrake Linux : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=29
Fedora Project : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=64
www.google.com/linux
www.distrowatch.com

--


The best live web video on the internet http://www.seedsv.com/webdemo.htm
NEW Embedded system W/Linux. We now sell DVR cards.
See it all at http://www.seedsv.com/products.htm
Sharpvision simply the best http://www.seedsv.com
 
I don't know about Mac OS6.x, it's been so long since I used it but
Macintosh operationg systems from 7.0 to 9.x could all be booted from
external SCSI hard drives. I believe OS10.x can also be booted from
external devices.
 
OK guys,

I'm going to try building/booting an external Linux drive. To one and all,
many thanks.

And I'll be back bragging about my success or whining about my failure.

Thanks to the Universe for Newsgroups.

Regards,
Richard
 
Carey Frisch said:
Windows XP, or any other operating system,
cannot be installed on an external drive.

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups
Click to expand...
snip

So you can't boot DOS from a floppy, interesting. I and so many others have
been booting DOS from external media since Noah was a lad :).
 
USB booting must be supported by the mobo and BIOS.



--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.
some support
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm



| Linux will boot and run from a thumbdrive, cd, external,
internal, and
| network drive. Because YOU don't know how does not make it
wrong.
|
| Booting Linux off of a USB drive.
| http://www.simonf.com/usb/
|
| Other links
| Knoppix Live Linux CD :
http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44
| Red Hat Linux : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=7
| Mandrake Linux : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=29
| Fedora Project : http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=64
| www.google.com/linux
| www.distrowatch.com
|
| --
|
|
| The best live web video on the internet
http://www.seedsv.com/webdemo.htm
| NEW Embedded system W/Linux. We now sell DVR cards.
| See it all at http://www.seedsv.com/products.htm
| Sharpvision simply the best http://www.seedsv.com
|
|
|
message
| | > No it cannot. Please do not make unsubstantiated
claims!
| >
| > --
| > Carey Frisch
| > Microsoft MVP
| > Windows XP - Shell/User
| > Microsoft Newsgroups
| >
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click to expand...
| >
| >
| > | Linux can.
| >
|
|
 
Hi Edward,

Edward W. Thompson said:
So you can't boot DOS from a floppy, interesting. I and so many others have
been booting DOS from external media since Noah was a lad :).
Click to expand...


Good point !! Thanks for weighing in.

Regards,
Richard
 
Hi Jim,

Thanks for the input. My mother boards are all Intel's running Pentium 5,
so my guess (hope?) is they're ok. But I'll check the BIOS setup on the
target machines.

Regards,
Richard
 
Where did you get a mobo and proc from the future? There is no such thing
as a Pentium 5.

Bobby
 
Pardon me...last time I checked this newsgroup was about the Windows XP
operating system.
 
Richard Lionheart said:
Hi,

I was running a three-computer workgroup: Win2kPro, Win2kAS and
WinXP-Pro.
I stupidly hosed the latter two machines. I wrecked the XP machine by
making a mistake when trying to use Partition Magic to expanded XP
partition. The AS machine somehow lost NTLDR. All machines have multiple
NT partitions.

I bought an external hard drive with goal of installing an OS on that
drive
using my still-working machine, then moving it successively to each of
dead
machines in order to recover important data from their hard drives before
trying to reinstall OSs on them.

If that seems workable, I assume I should install Linux on the external
drive because it could read NT partitions. Id rather put XP on the
external
drive when attached to my 2K machine, but fear that HAL from the 2K
machine
qould be inappropriate when installing the external drive and booting from
it on the other machines.

Does any of this make any sense?

Thanks in advance,
Richard
Click to expand...

XP can be booted from an external device if the motherboard supports it.
There are very few motherboards that support this. If yours are among them
only the manufacturer of the boards in question can tell you. If you can
change the boot device in the BIOS to USB it may work. More than likely it
will not. I have tried it successfully on an Intel D915GMHL BTX motherboard.
I have not seen it work on any other motherboard.

Kerry
 
Hi Bobby,
Where did you get a mobo and proc from the future? There is no such thing
as a Pentium 5.
Click to expand...

I got it by moving faster than light :-). I just did that from memory. My
oldest machine (which thankfully is still running) says in System
Properties/General:

Computer: x86 Family 6 Mode 7 Stepping. Hell, that sounds like a Pentium
6 :-) Actually, I think its a 550MHz Pentium.

My crashed XP system is a 2GHz Pentium.
My crashed Win2kAS system is maybe a 400 MHz. Pentium.

On the bright side, I got a 160GB external drive with a USB2 interface.
I'll post when I have something to report.

Regards,
Richard
 
He Ted,

Why are you following this thread if you think the posts here are
inappropriate? Since the title of this NG is ...WindowsXP.Hardware, it's
about HARDWARE used to run XP, not about XP per se. Don't you agree?

Regards,
Richard
 
Thanks Kerry for perhaps the most positive and helpful post to my question.
I've picked up a 160GB external drive with a USB2 interface. I'll see how
it goes.

Regards,
Richard
 
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