Boot Windows XP from a removable hard drive.

[Nathan]

I hope someone may be able to help me on this issue. I
have a couple of programs which really do not like each
other.

I need to configure XP on my laptop to boot from a
removable drive if present and boot from the internal
drive if not.

I have tried a couple of disk imaging programs to image
my internal hard drive to the removable drive. The
problem is that drive does not want to boot. According
to the documentation, this should be possible. I'm
apparently missing something.

On my previous laptop, I got this to work by replacing
the internal drive with the removable drive and doing a
fresh install. Then returning the orignial drive and
remounting the removable drive in the bay. I want to see
if there is another way.

By the way, the computer is a Dell Precision M60 mobile
workstation running Windows XP Pro.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Nathan

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

Do you mean external, such as a firewire or USB drive. If you do, the answer
is no.

If you mean a standard IDE hard drive in a removable tray, that when in
place is the C: drive - yes!

 

[CS]

After imaging your internal hard drive and copying it to the removable
drive, boot the laptop with your XP Pro CD. Then run the recovery
console from the CD and use the "fixboot" command.

Go here for recovery console options and an overview:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...l/winxppro/proddocs/recovery_console_cmds.asp

That should make the removable drive bootable.