Installing Windows XP on an external hard disk

[Guest]

I tried to install Windows XP Professional on my 80 GBs USB 2.0 Toshiba
external hard disk, the first level went well, after the first reboot (After
the files have been coppied) I got a BSOD informing me that I should remove
any new hardwareand stuff like that, it mentioned something about SCSI hard
disks, what can I do about it?

 

[Gordon]

I tried to install Windows XP Professional on my 80 GBs USB 2.0 Toshiba
external hard disk, the first level went well, after the first reboot
(After
the files have been coppied) I got a BSOD informing me that I should
remove
any new hardwareand stuff like that, it mentioned something about SCSI
hard
disks, what can I do about it?

I think you'll find that you can't install XP on an external HDD........

 

[SingaporeWebDesign]

Hello,

Actually you can - but its only for technical people.

http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=install+windows+xp+usb+drive

 

[Gordon]

Hello,

Actually you can - but its only for technical people.

http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=install+windows+xp+usb+drive

Also depends whether your BIOS will allow booting from external HDD......

 

[Gordon]

Hello,

Actually you can - but its only for technical people.

http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=install+windows+xp+usb+drive

I had a look at the first link on that page - that's a USB version of
BartPE - NOT designed to be run all the time as the primary OS, it's
designed as a disaster recovery application. The OP is, I think, asking
about running the computer full-time from an external HDD.

 

[R. McCarty]

Even if you overcome the hurdles to get it installed/running on an
external USB drive you'll be working in a UDMA Mode 2 speed.
Not good performance. If you really want external booting then
I'd suggest an external SATA or eSATA setup. It natively supports
Windows installation and doesn't have the speed limitations. It's
not the external designation that prevents Windows installs - but
the classification of the drive as "Removable". All USB peripherals
are seen as removable.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I tried to install Windows XP Professional on my 80 GBs USB 2.0 Toshiba
external hard disk, the first level went well, after the first reboot (After
the files have been coppied) I got a BSOD informing me that I should remove
any new hardwareand stuff like that, it mentioned something about SCSI hard
disks, what can I do about it?

Nothing. Windows is specifically designed so that people can't
circumvent its licensing conditions by installing it on external drives.


--

Bruce Chambers

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Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Gordon]

Guys, you are not getting the problem, the problem that I am facing is
that
I'm having a BSOD asking me to remove the drive, that screen appears after
the installation files have been copied, you know, when you boot from the
drive for the first time.

Sorry, I can find plenty of info on booting XP from a USB drive, but NOT
from any other external HDD. I think you can't do it.
Why do you want to?

 

[Ron Sommer]

You asked for the wrong drive.
You should have asked for a removable drive and a mobile rack.
With the rack, you could pull your folks drive out and put yours in.
--
Ronald Sommer

: Well, I am a programmer and I have many programming tools and IDEs
installed
: like VB6, VS.NET, ...etc and my parents hate that so they bought me an
: external hard disk, well, I asked them to, and I'm installing my own
Windows
: on it so I can have freedom installing whatever I want. Personally, I
prefer
: Linux but I have to have Windows to make programs for Windows specially
that
: I am making an application for my father's college and I can't stop right
: now, without that I wouldn't even think of installing Windows.
:
: "Gordon" wrote:
:
message
: > : > > Guys, you are not getting the problem, the problem that I am facing is
: > > that
: > > I'm having a BSOD asking me to remove the drive, that screen appears
after
: > > the installation files have been copied, you know, when you boot from
the
: > > drive for the first time.
: >
: >
: > Sorry, I can find plenty of info on booting XP from a USB drive, but NOT
: > from any other external HDD. I think you can't do it.
: > Why do you want to?
: >
: >
: >

 

[Rock]

Hello,

Actually you can - but its only for technical people.

http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=install+windows+xp+usb+drive

So what qualifies one as a technical person so they can do this? Do I have
to get a technical license to do it?

 

[Rock]

I tried to install Windows XP Professional on my 80 GBs USB 2.0 Toshiba
external hard disk, the first level went well, after the first reboot
(After
the files have been coppied) I got a BSOD informing me that I should
remove
any new hardwareand stuff like that, it mentioned something about SCSI
hard
disks, what can I do about it?

Though some claim you can install and run XP from an external USB drive, and
you could Google for supposed directions on this, I have never actually
known anyone of any repute who has done this successfully. It's not
designed to be installed on and run from an external USB drive.

Now installing to a drive that's outside of the system but connected to an
internal connector, not USB, will work. In that case it's still an
"internal" drive. One way to do this is to install a drive rack in a spare
drive bay, and install to the drive in that rack. It's an internal drive,
per it's connection. Use different drives for different people or needs.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately this is not an option for I am using a laptop, the whole family
is using it, plus, if I got that drive and wanted to run it on another
computer that computer would have to have the driver track so it's not gonna
be that portable. I think this is it, if Windows doesn't support installing
it on external hard drives then I'm giving up, I'm gonna use Linux and forget
about Windows, I can find a machine that has VB 6 so I can keep developing
that application and I will shift to Linux programming after this...
Microsoft didn't leave me any other option...

 

[Bill James]

You might consider using VMWare or VirtualPC and keep the OS image on the external hard drive. This "can" be moved from computer to computer, within certain limits. Of course, you need the proper licensing to do this.

 

[Bill James]

These programs and several others create a virtual computer running in a window within your main computer. You must install the main program, then set up one or more virtual hard drives which are just a huge file or perhaps several files depending on how it is configured. Those files can be located wherever you specify. You must then boot up that virtual computer and install the Operating System and programs that you want to run. The instance runs in a Window and you can use the computer for other things at the same time. Understand that you must allocate a portion of the system RAM for the virtual computer, which will have an effect on the host computer unless you have enough RAM. For most everything you will deal with, the virtual computer is in no different than a stand alone computer. I suggest you use Google to search for more information on these products. I have used both VirtualPC and VMWare, and to the typical user there is not much difference. VirtualPC is a Microsoft product and there is a separate newsgroup if you get stuck. You can also probably find a Usenet newsgroup for VMWare. There are also multiple on-line forums for each.

Before I went to being a fulltime work from home employee last year, I used a VirtualPC instance on an external hard drive to allow me to easily continue work between home and work. I also have multiple operating system available as virtual instance for testing, and several different Linux distros I use occasionally.

--

Bill James

Sounds interesting, can you explain a little bit more please?

 

[Bill James]

Correct. You probably want to look at VMWare from running on Linux.

 

[Gordon]

Cool, thank you all guys but there is one thing that I'm interested in, in
the link that I got (The google search) I found a website where you put a
question and someone answers it www.expert-exchange.com,

Don't bother - you'll get just as good advice here for nothing.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Cool, thank you all guys but there is one thing that I'm interested
in, in the link that I got (The google search) I found a website
where you put a question and someone answers it
www.expert-exchange.com, not sure about the idea but I think this
is how it works, there is a question there that from a person who
has the same problem that I'm having but you have to register in
their website to view the solution and the registration is not
free, does anybody here have an account there? I will use the
virtual PC solution but I wanna know why this happens... Here's the
link to the question:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Q_20983648.html

Visit the page and scroll down...
Further than you did before...
Past the advertisements and blah blah blah...

 

[Bill Sharpe]

I did but I didn't find anything, anyways, it was just curiosity, I will use
the virtual PC method, thank you all for your cooperation, one advantage of
that method is that after I'm finished with this project I can just remove
windows from the virtual PC and Windows time is over

:

Consider searching eBay or elsewhere for a used laptop with XP
installed. Then you can have your own machine. There were over 15,000
laptop items when I just checked.

Bill