Boot to USB

  • Thread starter Thread starter nemy35
  • Start date Start date
N

nemy35

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)


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.
 
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.
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 said:
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.
Click to expand...
 
Unknown said:
...The BIOS expects data from the bus the C drive attaches to.
Click to expand...


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 said:
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*
Click to expand...
 
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/storage/rem-stor.mspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa940915.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912927.aspx

John
 
This is a BIOS situation and not Windows.
John John said:
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/storage/rem-stor.mspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa940915.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912927.aspx

John
Click to expand...
 
You don't know what you are talking about. If the computer supports
booting from USB devices it doesn't care what device is stuck in the USB
port. Other than being able to boot form USB this has absolutely
*nothing* to do with the BIOS and it has all to do with the Windows
architecture and the Windows boot process. Instead of posting nonsense
you should put your time to better use and do a bit of reading and
educate yourself!

John
 
CAn Unknown please tell me who the company is that he refers to, & where can I get the CD with the program for booting an external drive?
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
 
Sorry my command of the English language is not as great as I wish it were.
Let me try again.
BIOS is absolutely required to boot a system. BIOS is, as you know, Basic
Input Output System.
When powering on a system something must operate an input device to load a
small program
which will then load the rest of the programs known as booting.
With PC's, that first device is the floppy, if not present then a CD if not
present then the C drive.
These are ALL internal devices and to the best of my knowledge BIOS will not
boot from an USB
drive. It is not supported, no-one has ever written a BIOS program to boot
from USB.
Please note ---I say boot. I did not say load (such as one program) from a
USB port.
Stomp on me if I'm wrong.
 
I have an external hard drive I use to back up my C drive on a weekly basis. If I lose anything I can restore it to my C drive from the backup. It works great. I purposely changed one of my files then restored it and it worked great.
However, suppose the C drive were incapable of booting. Then, you can't get to your backup drive to restore anything.
It would then be nice to 'boot' from your external HD. But that is not possible. BIOS is not written to perform that function.
Many systems have the capability to repair minor boot problems by reading a small program from a floppy. (Note I say read
and not boot, IPL Initial Program Load if you will)
But what if the C drive had a head crash and is non-repairable?
BounceBack developed by www.cmsproducts.com now has a disc (CD) that can load and transfer all the info on a USB connected backup hard drive to the C HD including the registry. If The C HD had to be replaced (is brand new) BounceBack
will format the new drive AND transfer the backup data to it. It now is Bootable. Hope this explains it.
CAn Unknown please tell me who the company is that he refers to, & where can I get the CD with the program for booting an external drive?
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
 
Why do you suppose the system HD MUST be C?
John John said:
You don't know what you are talking about. If the computer supports
booting from USB devices it doesn't care what device is stuck in the USB
port. Other than being able to boot form USB this has absolutely
*nothing* to do with the BIOS and it has all to do with the Windows
architecture and the Windows boot process. Instead of posting nonsense
you should put your time to better use and do a bit of reading and educate
yourself!

John
Click to expand...
 
Unknown said:
Why do you suppose the system HD MUST be C?
Click to expand...

It doesn't. Driver letters doesn't exist in bios, this is something the
OS makes up.

As others have said, if the bios supports booting from USB, then you can
do it. But the OS must also support it.
 
Back
Top