Installation on USB Drive

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Guest

So I found a number of messages stating you cannot install/boot Vista to an
external USB hard drive. Is this only for the Beta or are there plans to
allow this with final release?

Either way, it would have been nice if the Setup team added a check for this
so those of us unaware of this limiation wouldn't have wasted several hours
trying to install this thing onto our USB drive. This is just plain careless
of the Setup team for something as far along as Beta 2!
 
I have to agree. Colin, what's your point. It's a legitimate feature
request.

Tom
 
Having something be a Feature Request is one thing, to say that the
Installer designers should have a specific warning about something that is
not available with any current available OS is another..
 
I disagree there too. It's absolutely silly to allow the install to
progress on a drive that then won't boot. Think about it.

The installer shouldn't even offer that drive as a choice. It's bad code,
pure and simple.

Tom
 
Which other operating systems are you booting off of a usb drive now?
Click to expand...

Does it really matter, Colin?

Why can't Microsoft be the FIRST to allow booting from an external device?
What happened to the spirit of innovation which used to be a Microsoft
watchpoint?

Why must Microsoft always be copying others (as they've done with Vista vis
a vis OS X)?

Come on, Microsoft, let us boot from our external USB and Firewire devices
under Vista!!!. Many motherboards now allow for external devices to be boot
devices. Why can't Microsoft spend a little time and money (they have so
much of it, after all) and develop something NEW for a change?

Man, we're so damned TIRED of Windows 3.1. Get with it, Microsoft.

And while you're at it, PUT EFI partitions in, so we can get rid of OS X on
our Intel iMacs and MacBooks, and have the best OS (Vista) on the best
machines (Intel Macs)!!! As it is, we have to waste beaucoup disk space
keeping an OS X partition in place, and delete the Mac EFI partition just to
INSTALL Vista in the first place.

Come on, Microsoft, GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!!


Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread, so that it may not become broken.
========================================================================
 
Doesn't progress very far, first reboot and it stops.
I couldn't get a Hitachi SATA II to boot either. Good data drive.
 
Certainly it would be nice to allow for boot off of a USB. Those of us with
laptops that want/need multiple OSes for client work don't have a lot of
options now, especially since VPC with Vista is not that useful just yet.

Additionally, the fact that something works a certain way in XP is a moot
argument since USB Drives were not as ubiquitous when XP came out. They are
now, and judging by the number of posts here of folks who have tried to
install onto a USB drive, it makes sense to do something about the issue.

So either support the feature or have a check in the Setup to prevent
installation onto the USB drive. I know there are risks of allowing boot from
a removable drive so I do understand the predicament of supporting this
scenario. Listen, I am making a stink about this Setup issue mainly because
until my recent retirement I worked over 13 years FTE on a team in the MS
developer division (last 5 being GPM in charge of the team) so I know plenty
about setup and Box PM work (you can probably guess which team from the
title). I also know a lot about customer/community satisfaction.
 
I just wondered if you had experience booting from a usb drive or just
assumed you could. I do boot Vista off of an external enclosure, but it is
a SATA enclosure with a direct connection to the mobo via a passthrough
anchored in an expansion opening in the back of the PC. I asked because
your BIOS might support bootable usb devices and I wanted to know what you
had done previously. It was a legitimate question. I wanted to know.
 
I use an ExpressCard/34 adaptor for eSATA drives with one of my laptops.
FirmTek makes the card
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2sm2-e/.

I have not done it yet, but I understand that if you supply the driver (F6
for XP or Load Drivers for Vista, plus a contoller driver if not already in
firmware on your laptop) you should be able to boot from external eSATA and
SATA drives with it.

As I said, I have not done it yet, but the concept looks promising for
laptop users.
 
Fully acceptable and reasonable point.

Silly not to check that the install target is a device on which the OS will
not boot...
 
Just to have a look see one of my systems does indeed have an option to boot
from a USB drive. I have nothing to do really, and its doing to rain all
day, maybe I'll try something, here...
 
I use an ExpressCard/34 adaptor for eSATA drives with one of my laptops.
FirmTek makes the card
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2sm2-e/.

I have not done it yet, but I understand that if you supply the driver (F6
for XP or Load Drivers for Vista, plus a contoller driver if not already in
firmware on your laptop) you should be able to boot from external eSATA and
SATA drives with it.

As I said, I have not done it yet, but the concept looks promising for
laptop users.
Click to expand...


That's great, Colin. But what about those of us who can't afford to
purchase expensive hardware? What about those of us who CAN afford to
buy a cheap USB or Firewire drive and put it in an external enclosure
for $125?

Come on, Microsoft...

Used to be, you were the computer company of the PEOPLE. Now, your're
the computer company for the elitists. And we want to get AWAY from
Mac elitism.


==

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread.
==========================================================
 
Fully acceptable and reasonable point.

Silly not to check that the install target is a device on which the OS will
not boot...
Click to expand...


Any reasonable man would agree with you, my friend. But who said
Windows elitists were reasonable? Elitists are elitists, whether they
are Mac or Wintel elitists.

Line 'em ALL against the wall and shoot 'em DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!!!


==

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread.
==========================================================
 
The drives cost the same. Plain old SATA drives. As long as your enclosure
supports SATA ($20 to $50 on eBay) the adaptor does its thing. Anyway, I
thought I was just offering some options as a practical matter since there
is no way to make a drive system designed for data files and backup files do
any more than it was designed to do.
 
Colin Barnhorst said:
I just wondered if you had experience booting from a usb drive or just
assumed you could. I do boot Vista off of an external enclosure, but it is
a SATA enclosure with a direct connection to the mobo via a passthrough
anchored in an expansion opening in the back of the PC. I asked because
your BIOS might support bootable usb devices and I wanted to know what you
had done previously. It was a legitimate question. I wanted to know.
Click to expand...
 
Colin : This is PRECISELY what I want to do - boot from my 320G Seagate in
my eSata enclosure ( self-powered ) connected to my Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
mobo's eSata controller . How did YOU manage this ?
Wife + I have XPs installed on removable drives . First thought I'd
install to a permanent shared drive - didn't work + now I realize her drive
wouldn't show Vista boot anyway . Original plan was boot to external but
won't I have to make "Active" partition - what will happen to XP boot as only
one partition should be active ?
 
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