Bootable BartPE on a hard drive

[Holt]

It seems that BartPE is a bootable Windows XP environment on an
external/removable drive. It seems that BartPE is typically installed to a
CD. A BartPE installed on a CD incurs the limitations of CD, in terms of
the size and the unmodifiability after being burnt. On the other hand, hard
drives are free from the limitations of CDs. So, if a BartPE is installed
to a USB2/FireWire hard drive, will the BartPE on the USB2/FireWire hard
drive work like the full Windows XP on an internal drive?

After a BartPE is installed to a USB2/FireWire hard drive, can applications
be installed to the BartPE on the USB2/FireWire hard drive without plugins,
in the same fashion as applications are installed to the Windows XP
environment on an internal drive?

(BartPE, PE Builder)

 

[Jerry]

There have been comments in these newsgroups that Windows cannot be
installed on removable media. Period. So I would assume the easy answer is
NO.

 

[Kerry Brown]

It seems that BartPE is a bootable Windows XP environment on an
external/removable drive. It seems that BartPE is typically installed to
a
CD. A BartPE installed on a CD incurs the limitations of CD, in terms of
the size and the unmodifiability after being burnt. On the other hand,
hard
drives are free from the limitations of CDs. So, if a BartPE is installed
to a USB2/FireWire hard drive, will the BartPE on the USB2/FireWire hard
drive work like the full Windows XP on an internal drive?

After a BartPE is installed to a USB2/FireWire hard drive, can
applications
be installed to the BartPE on the USB2/FireWire hard drive without
plugins,
in the same fashion as applications are installed to the Windows XP
environment on an internal drive?

According to the FAQ at the BartPe site it depends. The FAQ mentions flash
drives. I'm assuming a USB hard drive would be the same.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#faq

" Q: Can BartPE boot from USB flash drives (UFD)?
A: Maybe. Does your BIOS supports booting from UFD as if it were a harddisk?
The Windows XP FAT bootsector code does not behave correctly when booting
from UFD. Bart already "fixed" the FAT bootsector code. But booting from UFD
is not stable at the moment. It is very dependent on what exact hardware is
used. Some bioses cannot be set to the correct emulation and other systems
hang or abort when the windows USB drivers are loaded. Tricky stuff, maybe
better support in future... "

 

[Gene K]

First, Bart's PE can boot your machine BUT the various programs you use are
not XP programs. Secondly, your BIOS specifies the devices you can boot
from. IF yours supports external USB devices, the only way to assure that it
will is to set up your device and BIOS for such and attempt to do it [the
proof is the results; will or won't].
Gene K

 

[Holt]

Hi,

The installation of BartPE to a USB
flash drive is very well explained in
the following web site:

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/200509
09/usb-stick-windows-01.html

A fellow named FML gave me the above
link, when he posted a reply in my other
thread "booting from an external drive"
in this newsgroup. I can give you some
web links for that thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft
..public.windowsxp.general/browse_thread/
thread/f4ac8ea85dc06036/

or

http://www.ureader.com/message/1836834.aspx

Two conclusions have been made in that
thread. For desktop/tower computers,
one can boot Windows XP from a hard
drive physically placed outside the PC
if the drive is connected to the PC via
a SATA channel.

For laptop/notebook computers, no one
who took part in that thread heard of
any SATA connection for drives placed
outside the PC. Thus, for
laptop/notebook computers, BartPE on a
USB/FireWire hard drive may be a good
compromise.

I would like to know the limitations of
BartPE on a USB2/FireWire hard drive
compared to the full Windows XP on an
internal hard drive. However, that
thread grew very long, mainly with the
subtopic of SATA drives for
desktop/tower computers. So, I decided
to start a new thread focusing on BartPE
on a USB2/FireWire hard drive for
laptop/notebook computers.

 

[Z]

First, Bart's PE can boot your machine BUT the various programs you use are
not XP programs.

See the Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows - http://www.ubcd4win.com - you
can add plenty of XP programs (like Ad Aware, AVG, etc) to Bart's PE to
make your UBCD4WIN CD.

 

[Kerry Brown]

It will take you less time to just try it than waiting for an answer. Let us
know how it works.

Kerry