How to install OS in external USB HDD

I connected a USB HDD to my PC where Vista is installed in its internal
SATA HDD, formatted a partition in the USB HDD, and attempted to install
WXP by booting from CDROM and pointing to the partition, but at the
first reboot, "ntldr is missing" was reported. Windows Vista became
unbootable so I had to repair it to make it bootable again.

Could anyone help me to install Windows XP in an external USB HDD in the
above situation?

churin wrote:

> I connected a USB HDD to my PC where Vista is installed in its internal
> SATA HDD, formatted a partition in the USB HDD, and attempted to install
> WXP by booting from CDROM and pointing to the partition, but at the
> first reboot, "ntldr is missing" was reported. Windows Vista became
> unbootable so I had to repair it to make it bootable again.
>
> Could anyone help me to install Windows XP in an external USB HDD in the
> above situation?

XP can't boot from an external hard drive, so this isn't going to work for
you. It might be able to boot from an external e-SATA drive if your
motherboard has e-SATA connections and your BIOS supports booting from an
e-SATA device.


Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

Malke wrote:
> churin wrote:
>
>> I connected a USB HDD to my PC where Vista is installed in its internal
>> SATA HDD, formatted a partition in the USB HDD, and attempted to install
>> WXP by booting from CDROM and pointing to the partition, but at the
>> first reboot, "ntldr is missing" was reported. Windows Vista became
>> unbootable so I had to repair it to make it bootable again.
>>
>> Could anyone help me to install Windows XP in an external USB HDD in the
>> above situation?
>
> XP can't boot from an external hard drive, so this isn't going to work for
> you. It might be able to boot from an external e-SATA drive if your
> motherboard has e-SATA connections and your BIOS supports booting from an
> e-SATA device.
>
> Malke
Thank you for enlightening me about it. The BIOS appears that USB drive
can be placed in the boot order list. Does this mean that Windows Vista
can be installed in an external USB HDD?

churin wrote:


> Thank you for enlightening me about it. The BIOS appears that USB drive
> can be placed in the boot order list. Does this mean that Windows Vista
> can be installed in an external USB HDD?

No. As I said, XP will not boot from an external hard drive. There have been
reports that it has been done with hacks, but I've never seen it reported
successfully with full details. You'll need to Google around if you want to
pursue that.

An e-SATA drive is held in an external drive enclosure but connects directly
to the motherboard. So even though it is physically outside of your
computer, it is technically inside your computer. I don't know whether XP
will boot from an e-SATA drive - and I expect you'd need to provide drive
controller drivers (F6) during installation. If you want to pursue this
avenue, then Google around for something like "XP boot from e-SATA drive"
and see what you come up with.


Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:23:42 -0500, churin <churin@new.postalias>
wrote:

>I connected a USB HDD to my PC where Vista is installed in its internal
>SATA HDD, formatted a partition in the USB HDD, and attempted to install
>WXP by booting from CDROM and pointing to the partition, but at the
>first reboot, "ntldr is missing" was reported. Windows Vista became
>unbootable so I had to repair it to make it bootable again.
>
>Could anyone help me to install Windows XP in an external USB HDD in the
>above situation?

If you really want to do it, you can try using the procedure detailed
at
Installing and booting Windows XP from USB drive -- Guide
<http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176>.

andy wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:23:42 -0500, churin <churin@new.postalias>
> wrote:
>
>> I connected a USB HDD to my PC where Vista is installed in its internal
>> SATA HDD, formatted a partition in the USB HDD, and attempted to install
>> WXP by booting from CDROM and pointing to the partition, but at the
>> first reboot, "ntldr is missing" was reported. Windows Vista became
>> unbootable so I had to repair it to make it bootable again.
>>
>> Could anyone help me to install Windows XP in an external USB HDD in the
>> above situation?
>
> If you really want to do it, you can try using the procedure detailed
> at
> Installing and booting Windows XP from USB drive -- Guide
> <http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176>.
Thanks for the info.

Malke wrote:
> churin wrote:
>
>
>> Thank you for enlightening me about it. The BIOS appears that USB drive
>> can be placed in the boot order list. Does this mean that Windows Vista
>> can be installed in an external USB HDD?
>
> No. As I said, XP will not boot from an external hard drive. There have been
> reports that it has been done with hacks, but I've never seen it reported
> successfully with full details. You'll need to Google around if you want to
> pursue that.
>
> An e-SATA drive is held in an external drive enclosure but connects directly
> to the motherboard. So even though it is physically outside of your
> computer, it is technically inside your computer. I don't know whether XP
> will boot from an e-SATA drive - and I expect you'd need to provide drive
> controller drivers (F6) during installation. If you want to pursue this
> avenue, then Google around for something like "XP boot from e-SATA drive"
> and see what you come up with.
>
>
> Malke
Thanks for the follow-up. The link in Andy's post seems to be what I
want to try.

[Talon]

I don't know if this is relevant for you anymore, but just for information (and for anyone else googling for a solution:

There are very clever people out there. that have created guides which allow you to run XP and Vista from external USB drives.

I have been personally successful with XP and am currently working on Vista.
A common trick in both instances is to change the the load time of the USB drivers.

For XP I used: http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176
For Vista I used: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=174858

Hope this helps.