Can a Maxtor usb drive be made bootable?

[Mike]

I think I know the answer is no, but I am not certain. What I am trying to
do is make the Maxtor usb drive bootable for purposes of restoring a backup
if I get into an emergency. I know in DOS I could format "format ( drive
letter) /s. This of course made the disk a systems disk. Is there anyway I
can do something similar with Windows XP Home. I do realize they are
different OS.
Thanks

 

[Don MI]

I think I know the answer is no, but I am not certain. What I am trying to
do is make the Maxtor usb drive bootable for purposes of restoring a
backup if I get into an emergency. I know in DOS I could format "format (
drive letter) /s. This of course made the disk a systems disk. Is there
anyway I can do something similar with Windows XP Home. I do realize they
are different OS.
Thanks

The limitation is in your computer BIOS. You need to have USB drivers in
BIOS to boot from the external drive. Most BIOS do not have such drivers.

You may want to consider a image/backup program that has a bootable CD {such
as Norton Ghost 9} so that you can boot from the CD and then access and
restore from your external drive.

You Maxtor drive may have come with Restrospect Express which has disaster
recovery feature to prepare bootable CDs. My Maxtor One Touch came with
Restrospect Express version 6.1 which I recently upgrade to version 6.5. As
I use Ghost, I have not tried this feature.

Don

 

[R. McCarty]

Neither Windows XP or Windows 2000 will install to devices that
are identified as "Removable".

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Neither Windows XP or Windows 2000 will install to devices that
are identified as "Removable".

Well *that* proves you didn't read the question! He doesn't want to install
anything to a removable drive, he wants to restore /from/ images stored
thereon.

 

[R. McCarty]

Several factors come into play here. First newer motherboards do
have provisions to boot from USB devices. Then many imaging
programs have recovery CD's that are themselves bootable. As to
whether the Bootable media can "See" the USB drive depends on
which application you are talking about. (Ghost, True Image, etc.)
and whether they support USB Device recovery.
Sorry if the answer seemed out-of-step with the question.

 

[Art]

I think I know the answer is no, but I am not certain. What I am trying to
do is make the Maxtor usb drive bootable for purposes of restoring a
backup if I get into an emergency. I know in DOS I could format "format (
drive letter) /s. This of course made the disk a systems disk. Is there
anyway I can do something similar with Windows XP Home. I do realize they
are different OS.

Don responds...
The limitation is in your computer BIOS. You need to have USB drivers in
BIOS to boot from the external drive. Most BIOS do not have such drivers.
You may want to consider a image/backup program that has a bootable CD {such
as Norton Ghost 9} so that you can boot from the CD and then access and
restore from your external drive.
You Maxtor drive may have come with Restrospect Express which has disaster
recovery feature to prepare bootable CDs. My Maxtor One Touch came with
Restrospect Express version 6.1 which I recently upgrade to version 6.5. As
I use Ghost, I have not tried this feature.
Don


R. McCarty wrote:
Several factors come into play here. First newer motherboards do
have provisions to boot from USB devices. Then many imaging
programs have recovery CD's that are themselves bootable. As to
whether the Bootable media can "See" the USB drive depends on
which application you are talking about. (Ghost, True Image, etc.)
and whether they support USB Device recovery.


Mike:
Notwithstanding responses you will get stating in effect, "Yes, a USB
external hard drive is bootable as long as your motherboard's BIOS supports
this capability", to the best of my knowledge a USB EHD is NOT bootable with
the XP OS. I've worked with a wide variety of USB EHDs as well as
motherboards whose BIOS presumably supports USB booting capability, but I've
yet to get a USB EHD to boot. I've communicated with a number of hard drive
and USB enclosure manufacturers re this issue and all of them confirm that a
USB EHD is not bootable in a Windows XP environment. I know a number of
users have stated they have done so but I've yet to come across a reliable
documented source confirming this capability. I am aware that certain USB
devices such as jump drives are bootable and I assume that is what Mr.
McCarty is referring to.

Now you can clone the contents of your internal hard drive to a USB EHD
using a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True
Image. Should the need arise you can clone back to the internal hard drive
the contents of the USB EHD and there will be no problem with the internal
hard drive booting. (Needless to say this supposes that the internal hard
drive is mechanically/electronically sound). Thus the USB EHD can serve as a
very useful backup device.
Art

 

[Bob I]

Actually the OP implied that Windows XP Home would be the operating
system to be booted from a USB drive which is of course a removable
drive and from there restore back to the HD. Now in my book its pretty
hard to boot from an operating system on a removable USB drive unless it
was installed first.

 

[Mike]

Don responds...
The limitation is in your computer BIOS. You need to have USB drivers in
BIOS to boot from the external drive. Most BIOS do not have such drivers.
You may want to consider a image/backup program that has a bootable CD {such
as Norton Ghost 9} so that you can boot from the CD and then access and
restore from your external drive.
You Maxtor drive may have come with Restrospect Express which has disaster
recovery feature to prepare bootable CDs. My Maxtor One Touch came with
Restrospect Express version 6.1 which I recently upgrade to version 6.5. As
I use Ghost, I have not tried this feature.
Don

If you have Ghost then how do you use RE and why did you upgrade it to 6.5?

 

[Alex Nichol]

I think I know the answer is no, but I am not certain. What I am trying to
do is make the Maxtor usb drive bootable for purposes of restoring a backup
if I get into an emergency. I know in DOS I could format "format ( drive
letter) /s. This of course made the disk a systems disk. Is there anyway I
can do something similar with Windows XP Home. I do realize they are
different OS.

It depends on whether your BIOS will boot from a USB device (which it
probably will not do). Also XP cannot be installed on a removable
device. You need a backup method that provides for an auxiliary floppy
based tool for doing the restore. One I suggest is Image for Windows
from http://www.BootitNG.com ($27 shareware - 30 day full functional
trial). That will make a drive like a DVD self bootable for restore, or
for a USB comes with an 'Image for DOS' that can be put on a DOS boot
floppy

 

[Don MI]

{SNIP}

If you have Ghost then how do you use RE and why did you upgrade it to
6.5?

The computer is for home, non-business, use. I image once a week {usually}.
The Maxtor One-Touch has a button {thus the name} on the drive that opens RE
and backups document files. I use that between images. I know Ghost 9 can
be configured to do incremental backups. However, I was using RE before
Ghost 9 was released. Saw no reason to change. The RE upgrade was low cost
so I did it to keep current.