I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size EIDE drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model DX-HDEN10 using Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the copied drive active, bootable & with a copied MBR.

I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the copied drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.

I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to ARMD-HDD, but that didn't work.

Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?

Regards...Don

Nemy35,

What you need to do is find out if you can boot from the USB device in the BIOS.
If the BIOS picks it up then set it as the main boot device & try. Some
motherboards support this, others don't

Restart computer & press DEL or F2 depending on your motherboard

In the BIOS go to BOOT CONFIGURATION & see if you can set it

F10 Save & Exit

--
Newbie Coder
(It's just a name)


"nemy35" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size EIDE
drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model DX-HDEN10 using
Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the copied drive active,
bootable & with a copied MBR.

I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the copied
drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.

I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to ARMD-HDD, but
that didn't work.

Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?

Regards...Don

Windows isn't likely to Install/Boot or Run from any "Removable" device.
Note it's not External but removable that prevents booting. To do what
you are seeking you'd be better off using a eSATA drive. Due to the
throughput of USB even if you got it to work it's (USB Drive) transfer
rate would never exceed 25-Megabytes-per-second.

"Newbie Coder" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Nemy35,
>
> What you need to do is find out if you can boot from the USB device in the
> BIOS.
> If the BIOS picks it up then set it as the main boot device & try. Some
> motherboards support this, others don't
>
> Restart computer & press DEL or F2 depending on your motherboard
>
> In the BIOS go to BOOT CONFIGURATION & see if you can set it
>
> F10 Save & Exit
>
> --
> Newbie Coder
> (It's just a name)
>
>
> "nemy35" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size
> EIDE
> drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model DX-HDEN10
> using
> Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the copied drive active,
> bootable & with a copied MBR.
>
> I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the
> copied
> drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.
>
> I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to
> ARMD-HDD, but
> that didn't work.
>
> Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?
>
> Regards...Don
>
>

This is not normally possible. The reason is that the normal C drive is on a different bus than the external drive. The BIOS expects data from the bus the C drive attaches to.
However, You can create a bootable external drive. To boot it you have connect it to the bus where the C drive connects to.
One company has overcome this problem by creating a CD with a program to perform this function. I.E. You load the CD and it has a program which will boot up (load) your external drive. I have this configuration and it's great.
"nemy35" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size EIDE drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model DX-HDEN10 using Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the copied drive active, bootable & with a copied MBR.

I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the copied drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.

I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to ARMD-HDD, but that didn't work.

Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?

Regards...Don

Transfer rate is more than adequate.
"R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Windows isn't likely to Install/Boot or Run from any "Removable" device.
> Note it's not External but removable that prevents booting. To do what
> you are seeking you'd be better off using a eSATA drive. Due to the
> throughput of USB even if you got it to work it's (USB Drive) transfer
> rate would never exceed 25-Megabytes-per-second.
>
> "Newbie Coder" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Nemy35,
>>
>> What you need to do is find out if you can boot from the USB device in
>> the BIOS.
>> If the BIOS picks it up then set it as the main boot device & try. Some
>> motherboards support this, others don't
>>
>> Restart computer & press DEL or F2 depending on your motherboard
>>
>> In the BIOS go to BOOT CONFIGURATION & see if you can set it
>>
>> F10 Save & Exit
>>
>> --
>> Newbie Coder
>> (It's just a name)
>>
>>
>> "nemy35" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
>> I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size
>> EIDE
>> drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model DX-HDEN10
>> using
>> Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the copied drive
>> active,
>> bootable & with a copied MBR.
>>
>> I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the
>> copied
>> drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.
>>
>> I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to
>> ARMD-HDD, but
>> that didn't work.
>>
>> Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?
>>
>> Regards...Don
>>
>>
>
>

"Unknown" wrote:
> ...The BIOS expects data from the bus the C drive attaches to.


This is utter nonsense. Data can come from any bus,
and the BIOS will boot from any partition passing data
to a booting controller. The whole concept of "C drive"
is from the DOS world and outmoded. Disregard Mr.
"Unknown", who has yet to offer any useful information.

*TimDaniels*

Apparently you don't know much about BIOS.
"Timothy Daniels" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Unknown" wrote:
>> ...The BIOS expects data from the bus the C drive attaches to.
>
>
> This is utter nonsense. Data can come from any bus,
> and the BIOS will boot from any partition passing data
> to a booting controller. The whole concept of "C drive"
> is from the DOS world and outmoded. Disregard Mr.
> "Unknown", who has yet to offer any useful information.
>
> *TimDaniels*
>

May I suggest you investigate why you cannot boot from an external drive.
"Timothy Daniels" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Unknown" wrote:
>> ...The BIOS expects data from the bus the C drive attaches to.
>
>
> This is utter nonsense. Data can come from any bus,
> and the BIOS will boot from any partition passing data
> to a booting controller. The whole concept of "C drive"
> is from the DOS world and outmoded. Disregard Mr.
> "Unknown", who has yet to offer any useful information.
>
> *TimDaniels*
>

That won't work. Booting Windows XP on USB drives is unsupported.
There are some who claim that after much fiddling about they have gotten
this to work but for all intents and purposes for most users it doesn't
work. No doubt that in the not so distant future booting Windows on USB
drives will be possible, maybe it will be possible with Vista but I
don't expect that Microsoft will put much, if any, effort in getting
desktop XP to boot this way, XP is nearing the end of its life cycle
(mainstream support ends in less than 2 years) and users shouldn't
expect any major revamping or any significant new features to be added
to it.

I am no expert on this and I stand to be corrected, but if I remember
correctly I think that I read that one of the problem in getting Windows
to boot on USB drives is in the way USB is enumerated or in the way the
stack is loaded when Windows is booted. I think it is done well after
the Session Manager is started so it's like a catch 22 situation,
Windows can't boot on USB drives because it only loads the USB stack
when it is almost done booting up. This is particularly problematic
with the creation of the pagefile, the creation of the pagefile is one
of the first thing that the Session Manager does and if the USB stack is
not loaded the Session Manager cannot create the pagefile.

However, booting on USB flash devices is possible with Windows XP
Embedded SP2 (flash only, not hard disk), so the possibility that it can
be done with desktop XP on a hard drive is not so far fetched. If you
are adept and prepared to put the necessary effort into it you can
research this further and "play" with it.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device.../rem-stor.mspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa940915.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912927.aspx

John

nemy35 wrote:

> I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size
> EIDE drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model
> DX-HDEN10 using Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the
> copied drive active, bootable & with a copied MBR.
>
> I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the
> copied drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.
>
> I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to
> ARMD-HDD, but that didn't work.
>
> Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?
>
> Regards...Don

This is a BIOS situation and not Windows.
"John John" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> That won't work. Booting Windows XP on USB drives is unsupported. There
> are some who claim that after much fiddling about they have gotten this to
> work but for all intents and purposes for most users it doesn't work. No
> doubt that in the not so distant future booting Windows on USB drives will
> be possible, maybe it will be possible with Vista but I don't expect that
> Microsoft will put much, if any, effort in getting desktop XP to boot this
> way, XP is nearing the end of its life cycle (mainstream support ends in
> less than 2 years) and users shouldn't expect any major revamping or any
> significant new features to be added to it.
>
> I am no expert on this and I stand to be corrected, but if I remember
> correctly I think that I read that one of the problem in getting Windows
> to boot on USB drives is in the way USB is enumerated or in the way the
> stack is loaded when Windows is booted. I think it is done well after the
> Session Manager is started so it's like a catch 22 situation, Windows
> can't boot on USB drives because it only loads the USB stack when it is
> almost done booting up. This is particularly problematic with the
> creation of the pagefile, the creation of the pagefile is one of the first
> thing that the Session Manager does and if the USB stack is not loaded the
> Session Manager cannot create the pagefile.
>
> However, booting on USB flash devices is possible with Windows XP Embedded
> SP2 (flash only, not hard disk), so the possibility that it can be done
> with desktop XP on a hard drive is not so far fetched. If you are adept
> and prepared to put the necessary effort into it you can research this
> further and "play" with it.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device.../rem-stor.mspx
> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa940915.aspx
> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912927.aspx
>
> John
>
> nemy35 wrote:
>
>> I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size
>> EIDE drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model
>> DX-HDEN10 using Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the
>> copied drive active, bootable & with a copied MBR.
>> I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the
>> copied drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.
>> I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to
>> ARMD-HDD, but that didn't work.
>> Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?
>> Regards...Don