Boot from external drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack
  • Start date Start date
J

Jack

Is there any way to boot from a USB external drive if I
put the original copy of XP to it,some settings in the
bios I can change to get it to boot from it?I like to
Back-up my system regularly with it,I would like to make
it bootable in case a crash.Then would need to boot from
it.Is there a motherboard available that allows you to
boot from USB?
 
But you can boot DOS with NTFS support!!

I've searched for ages and not managed to find any way of booting either the
recovery cosole, or windows XP itself from a flash drive. Most recent BIOSes
will let you boot DOS from one though. From my experience you'll need a
utility from the manufacturer of the drive, to make it bootable. Then just
copy any other stuff onto the flash drive that you might want. Like NTFSPRO
or READNTFS for DOS NTFS support.

Then all you have to do is set your BIOS to boot from it, just like you
would a CDROM or floppy drive.

You sometimes have to boot with the flash drive plugged into the USB sockets
on the motherboard round the back of the machine - NOT sockets round the
front of a case.

Hope it helps
 
Can you explain the difference between 'front' and 'back' USB ports that you
thing makes one different from the other? Could it be that the 'front' ports
are plugged in to motherboard socket that only supports USB 1? Even if that
is true, that should not prevent the USB device from working and in either
case, at initial stage of the boot process, all USB devices behave as USB 1
(I may be wrong on this last point, depending on the motherboard).
 
To be honest, I really don't know why it makes any difference at all!! As
vfar as I know, they're handled in the same way - it's something I can't
figure out myself.

But it seems to be the way it works on every PC I've tried to boot from any
of my 3 pen drives.
 
The reason your 'front' may not work may be that the connection on the
motherboard is not correct. Some of these cables that bring the USB to the
front of the case are made with loose wire connectors as opposed to a fixed
plug and during installation of such cable any one of the wires can be
plugged incorrectly. I suggest you check the cable where it is plugged to
the motherboard.
 
That isn't the problem at all. It's that I can't boot the recovery console
from the drive. If a motherboard supports USB - then genrally ALL
sockets/headers do. The front sockets on my PC work fine - and all of the
other ones i've tried! and it wasn't me posting a problem, I suggested a
solution/workaround for someone elses! May I suggest you read the posts
properly.
 
| You sometimes have to boot with the flash drive plugged into the USB
sockets
| on the motherboard round the back of the machine - NOT sockets round the
| front of a case.

I was only replying to your comment that you made to Sandman
 
Back
Top