Booting XP from external USB drive - change C drive?

[Olivier]

What I want to do is: Boot my laptop from an external drive so that I have a
completely different Windows installation when I boot from the USB drive
than when I boot from the internal drive. The reason is that this is a work
laptop and I want to be able to keep work and personal things separate so I
could reboot on the USB drive after office hours and get my own system.

I have done everything that needed doing to copy my current partition from
the C drive to the USB drive and this is bootable. I expected somehow that
if I booted from the external drive it would become the primary drive, but
obviously not. So what happens is that it starts booting from the USB drive
and very quickly its registry tells it to start programs from C: so I don't
end up with a different system at all!

I am wondering if it is possible to assign drive C to another letter and
then the USB drive to drive C early enough in the boot process. How would
you go about it?

Thanks in advance

Olivier

 

[Ron Sommer]

An operating system gives drives drive letters.
Usually the active drive gets the operating system installed on it and
becomes C.
The operating system on the laptop is on C and the operating system on the
USB drive is on C.
The boot.ini file uses disk and partition numbers to determine which
partition to boot.

How are you switching the drive boot order to choose between the USB and the
laptop drives?
--
Ronald Sommer

: What I want to do is: Boot my laptop from an external drive so that I have
a
: completely different Windows installation when I boot from the USB drive
: than when I boot from the internal drive. The reason is that this is a
work
: laptop and I want to be able to keep work and personal things separate so
I
: could reboot on the USB drive after office hours and get my own system.
:
: I have done everything that needed doing to copy my current partition from
: the C drive to the USB drive and this is bootable. I expected somehow that
: if I booted from the external drive it would become the primary drive, but
: obviously not. So what happens is that it starts booting from the USB
drive
: and very quickly its registry tells it to start programs from C: so I
don't
: end up with a different system at all!
:
: I am wondering if it is possible to assign drive C to another letter and
: then the USB drive to drive C early enough in the boot process. How would
: you go about it?
:
: Thanks in advance
:
: Olivier
:
:

 

[Olivier]

I expected the operating system on the USB drive to end up being on C, but
it's not. The internal drive remains C with the 'works' Windows XP and the
USB drive remains E.

To boot from the USB disk I changed the boot device order in the BIOS
setting to boot from USB before booting from internal disk. In other words
to boot from the USB drive I connect it before powering on and to boot from
the internal drive I power on without the USB drive connected. Or a least
that was the idea.

I'm after another way of doing it which would allow me to have two separate
working environments so that I can experiment with the 'home' (USB) drive
without consequence on the work (internal) drive.

 

[Anna]

I expected the operating system on the USB drive to end up being on C, but
it's not. The internal drive remains C with the 'works' Windows XP and the
USB drive remains E.

To boot from the USB disk I changed the boot device order in the BIOS
setting to boot from USB before booting from internal disk. In other words
to boot from the USB drive I connect it before powering on and to boot
from the internal drive I power on without the USB drive connected. Or a
least that was the idea.

I'm after another way of doing it which would allow me to have two
separate working environments so that I can experiment with the 'home'
(USB) drive we've never been able to boot an XP OS from a USB/Firewire
EHD. And, I might add, we've never come across a single confirmed &
documented report where this capability was achieved and was without
consequence on the work (internal) drive.

Olivier:
Over the years there have been many newsgroup contributors and others who
have claimed to have booted the XP OS from a USB external HDD. Usually their
claim is couched in phrases like "as long as the motherboard's BIOS supports
this capability", or some such. All I can say is that we've worked with a
large variety of motherboards that presumably provided this "capability" but
we've never been able to boot an XP OS from a USB/Firewire EHD. And, I might
add, we've never come across a single confirmed & documented report where
this capability was achieved and was repeatable.

Having said this, you might want to take a look at this fairly recent Fred
Langa article where Fred purports to have come up with a process to achieve
this "bootability". See
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticleSrc.jhtml?articleID=177102101

Also, a poster to one of the MS XP newsgroups claimed that he too has come
up with a methodology to do this as well. See
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

No doubt a Google search will also reveal a good deal of information on this
issue.

I really don't know any practical way to meet your objective. We have
experimented with a few eSATA (external) laptop CardBus adapters so as to
make a direct SATA-to-SATA connection from a SATA external enclosure to the
laptop's CardBus slot, but we've not be able to effect a boot using those
devices as well.

It has puzzled us why laptop/notebook manufacturers have not (at least up
the present time) produced their wares with an eSATA port, along with the
usual USB port. To our mind this would be an enormous leap forward since it
would provide the capability you and many others are looking for when using
a laptop/notebook. (A few desktop machines are finally coming on market with
at least one eSATA port). BTW, we have heard that ASUS will shortly be
releasing a notebook with an eSATA port.
Anna

 

[Olivier]

Anna,

Thank you for this reply. I will check the links you provide. The problem is
not with booting as I think it starts booting from the external drive (but I
might be mistaken). The problem is that the registry on the USB drive also
refers to the C: drive so than it starts loading from there.

I thought maybe I could do a global replace of C: to E: in the registry
files on the USB drive.

As an alternative I was thinking I could swap the disk instead (although it
would be good to have both at the same time). That's when I discovered the
laptop disk is SATA and the external disk is IDE.

 

[Anna]

Anna,

Thank you for this reply. I will check the links you provide. The problem
is not with booting as I think it starts booting from the external drive
(but I might be mistaken). The problem is that the registry on the USB
drive also refers to the C: drive so than it starts loading from there.

I thought maybe I could do a global replace of C: to E: in the registry
files on the USB drive.

As an alternative I was thinking I could swap the disk instead (although
it would be good to have both at the same time). That's when I discovered
the laptop disk is SATA and the external disk is IDE.

Olivier:
I really don't think "swapping" the HDDs would be a viable solution, even
setting aside the fact that one is PATA and the other is SATA. Even if both
had the same interface it wouldn't make a difference in that you would be
able to boot to the USBHDD enclosure containing your internal laptop's HDD.
At least to the best of my knowledge.

And the awkwardness of it all even if it could be done would be an
overwhelming disadvantage, would it not, assuming you were doing this on
some sort of routine basis?
Anna

 

[LVTravel]

Oliver, remember that even if you were able to accomplish
what you are trying to do, you are working on your
employer's laptop. Hope you have permission. If you crash
it while you are "playing around" with it will you have a
job later? You would be much more wise to purchase your own
laptop or desktop and do what you are trying to do.

 

[Olivier]

Thank you for your concern. You see, this is precisely why I was trying to
do this. In my view if I could boot completely from another disk and I
crashed it, then there would be absolutely no consequences on the laptop
when I rebooted it with the internal disk. everything, except BIOS setups,
is on the disk, right?

The idea is that I can play around on my own time on my own disk and incur
no risk of messing up the laptop. If I do mess it up I not only have the
option to go back to previous savepoints but also to restore the disk image
and start all over again.

Where's the risk?

 

[Olivier]

Anna,

Of course putting the internal disk into a USB enclosure and the external
disk inside the laptop wouldn't make a difference to the problem - they are
currently identical in contents.

This is indeed not what I was talking about when I was talking of swapping
them. What I mean was that on this laptop if you remove 2 screws you can
pull the disk out. If my spare disk was SATA and I obtained the little bit
of plastic that attaches to the end of the disk to enable me to pull it out
easily I could swap the disk that is inside the computer, using the provided
disk during the day and my own disk out of hours.

Apart from the fact I bought the wrong disk and am not sure I can find a USB
enclosure that takes SATA to prepare the spare disk, I can see a couple of
problems with this solution:

1) I am not sure the SATA connection is meant to be used to pull disks in
and out several hundred times a year over the next 3 years

2) Having one disk or the other inside the laptop means that a little bit
more planning is needed to share things between the 2 disks. I can use
network drives or a USB attached disk to do this but it means planning it
before the disk is taken out rather than just getting it from the disk when
needed. I suppose this could be helped by synchronisation software, though.

Any comments appreciated.

Subsidiary question: is there a way to edit the registry that is stored on
my E: drive (the USB drive)? The situation is that the E: drive is a copy of
the C: drive a few days ago (a partition copy). If I could change all
references to C: to references to E: on that registry on the E: drive then
it would be consistent to boot from, wouldn't it?

 

[AJR]

Keep in mind that XP must boot from the active partition (only can be one)
on drive 0 (99.9% of the time "C" ) - to boot from another HD/partition
requires boot.ini modification or a third party boot manager.
BIOS must provide option to boot from USB and, most important, power must be
applied to USB device at boot.

 

[Ron Sommer]

The registry on the USB drive refers to the C: drive which is the USB drive.
You also have the laptop C.
The operating system on a cloned partition is going to retain the original
drive letter.
You need to put something on the Desktop so you know which XP has booted.
--
Ronald Sommer

: Anna,
:
: Thank you for this reply. I will check the links you provide. The problem
is
: not with booting as I think it starts booting from the external drive (but
I
: might be mistaken). The problem is that the registry on the USB drive also
: refers to the C: drive so than it starts loading from there.
:
: I thought maybe I could do a global replace of C: to E: in the registry
: files on the USB drive.
:
: As an alternative I was thinking I could swap the disk instead (although
it
: would be good to have both at the same time). That's when I discovered the
: laptop disk is SATA and the external disk is IDE.
:
: : >
: >>> : >>> : What I want to do is: Boot my laptop from an external drive so that
I
: >>> have a completely different Windows installation when I boot from the
: >>> USB drive
: >>> : than when I boot from the internal drive. The reason is that this is
a
: >>> work laptop and I want to be able to keep work and personal things
: >>> separate so I could reboot on the USB drive after office hours and get
: >>> my own system.
: >>> :
: >>> I have done everything that needed doing to copy my current partition
: >>> from the C drive to the USB drive and this is bootable. I expected
: >>> somehow that if I booted from the external drive it would become the
: >>> primary drive, but obviously not. So what happens is that it starts
: >>> booting from the USB
: >>> drive and very quickly its registry tells it to start programs from C:
: >>> so I
: >>> don't end up with a different system at all!
: >>> :
: >>> : I am wondering if it is possible to assign drive C to another letter
: >>> and
: >>> : then the USB drive to drive C early enough in the boot process. How
: >>> would you go about it?
: >>> :
: >>> : Thanks in advance
: >>> :
: >>> : Olivier
: >
: >
: >> : >>> An operating system gives drives drive letters.
: >>> Usually the active drive gets the operating system installed on it and
: >>> becomes C.
: >>> The operating system on the laptop is on C and the operating system on
: >>> the
: >>> USB drive is on C.
: >>> The boot.ini file uses disk and partition numbers to determine which
: >>> partition to boot.
: >>>
: >>> How are you switching the drive boot order to choose between the USB
and
: >>> the
: >>> laptop drives?
: >>> --
: >>> Ronald Sommer
: >
: >
: > : >>I expected the operating system on the USB drive to end up being on C,
but
: >>it's not. The internal drive remains C with the 'works' Windows XP and
the
: >>USB drive remains E.
: >>
: >> To boot from the USB disk I changed the boot device order in the BIOS
: >> setting to boot from USB before booting from internal disk. In other
: >> words to boot from the USB drive I connect it before powering on and to
: >> boot from the internal drive I power on without the USB drive
connected.
: >> Or a least that was the idea.
: >>
: >> I'm after another way of doing it which would allow me to have two
: >> separate working environments so that I can experiment with the 'home'
: >> (USB) drive we've never been able to boot an XP OS from a USB/Firewire
: >> EHD. And, I might add, we've never come across a single confirmed &
: >> documented report where this capability was achieved and was without
: >> consequence on the work (internal) drive.
: >
: >
: > Olivier:
: > Over the years there have been many newsgroup contributors and others
who
: > have claimed to have booted the XP OS from a USB external HDD. Usually
: > their claim is couched in phrases like "as long as the motherboard's
BIOS
: > supports this capability", or some such. All I can say is that we've
: > worked with a large variety of motherboards that presumably provided
this
: > "capability" but we've never been able to boot an XP OS from a
: > USB/Firewire EHD. And, I might add, we've never come across a single
: > confirmed & documented report where this capability was achieved and was
: > repeatable.
: >
: > Having said this, you might want to take a look at this fairly recent
Fred
: > Langa article where Fred purports to have come up with a process to
: > achieve this "bootability". See
: >
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticleSrc.jhtml?articleID=177102101
: >
: > Also, a poster to one of the MS XP newsgroups claimed that he too has
come
: > up with a methodology to do this as well. See
: > http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176
: >
: > No doubt a Google search will also reveal a good deal of information on
: > this issue.
: >
: > I really don't know any practical way to meet your objective. We have
: > experimented with a few eSATA (external) laptop CardBus adapters so as
to
: > make a direct SATA-to-SATA connection from a SATA external enclosure to
: > the laptop's CardBus slot, but we've not be able to effect a boot using
: > those devices as well.
: >
: > It has puzzled us why laptop/notebook manufacturers have not (at least
up
: > the present time) produced their wares with an eSATA port, along with
the
: > usual USB port. To our mind this would be an enormous leap forward since
: > it would provide the capability you and many others are looking for when
: > using a laptop/notebook. (A few desktop machines are finally coming on
: > market with at least one eSATA port). BTW, we have heard that ASUS will
: > shortly be releasing a notebook with an eSATA port.
: > Anna
: >
:
:

 

[Anna]

Anna,

Of course putting the internal disk into a USB enclosure and the external
disk inside the laptop wouldn't make a difference to the problem - they
are currently identical in contents.

This is indeed not what I was talking about when I was talking of swapping
them. What I mean was that on this laptop if you remove 2 screws you can
pull the disk out. If my spare disk was SATA and I obtained the little bit
of plastic that attaches to the end of the disk to enable me to pull it
out easily I could swap the disk that is inside the computer, using the
provided disk during the day and my own disk out of hours.

Apart from the fact I bought the wrong disk and am not sure I can find a
USB enclosure that takes SATA to prepare the spare disk, I can see a
couple of problems with this solution:

1) I am not sure the SATA connection is meant to be used to pull disks in
and out several hundred times a year over the next 3 years

2) Having one disk or the other inside the laptop means that a little bit
more planning is needed to share things between the 2 disks. I can use
network drives or a USB attached disk to do this but it means planning it
before the disk is taken out rather than just getting it from the disk
when needed. I suppose this could be helped by synchronisation software,
though.

Any comments appreciated.

Subsidiary question: is there a way to edit the registry that is stored on
my E: drive (the USB drive)? The situation is that the E: drive is a copy
of the C: drive a few days ago (a partition copy). If I could change all
references to C: to references to E: on that registry on the E: drive then
it would be consistent to boot from, wouldn't it?

Olivier:
Yes, I see now that what you're contemplating is transferring the
(presumably) cloned HDD in the USB external enclosure to your laptop and
thus be able to boot to that drive and access its contents. We'll assume the
cloned HDD has the same SATA interface as your internal HDD in the laptop.

You could do that of course, but again, it certainly seems to be an
awkward - not to say cumbersome workaround - since (as I understand it) you
would be doing this on a rather frequent basis. With reasonable care I
suppose the HDDs involved would be able to stand up to this more-or-less
constant disconnect/connect process over a reasonable period of time but I
wouldn't be particularly sanguine over the lifespan of the drives involved,
not to say the laptop itself.

I know of no way to "edit the registry" on your USBEHD so that it would be a
bootable device.
Anna

 

[Olivier]

I do have the option to boot up from USB in the BIOS. I think that since the
BIOS allows bootup from USB it also applies power to the USB ports early
enough to make it work.

The boot from active partition might be the main problem, though.But funnily
if I open Disk Management I can see that the internal disk's NTFS partition
is marked as System and the EXTERNAL one is marked Active. If I remove the
external disk the internal disk's partition is still marked 'System', not
'Active' although obvioulsy it boots from it as I have no problem booting up
with just the internal disk.

I am confused.

Also the internal disk (and the external one now, since I cloned it) has
another partition of 125MB (with 119MB free) which is described as 'EISA
Configuration'. I am not sure what that is and if that's got anything to do
with this.

 

[Olivier]

Thanks Ron, see below.

The registry on the USB drive refers to the C: drive which is the USB
drive.

It doesn't appear so. The USB drive stays as the E: drive. The registry on
the E: drive indeed refers to everything being on the C: drive, since it's a
copy of the original registry.

You also have the laptop C.

Yes, the internal drive is C: but I have only one C: drive, not 2.

The operating system on a cloned partition is going to retain the original
drive letter.

Yes, I identified this as a problem. I suppose you mean the same thing as in
your first point, which is that the registry retains the original drive
letter. Where else would the operating system retain the original drive
letter?

You need to put something on the Desktop so you know which XP has booted.

Not really. I know it doesn't boot from the USB drive. The LED changes to
red briefly at the beginning but then stays green (inactive) when Windows
loads and the internal disk activity indicator flashes.

If only I could tell the system to swap drive E: and drive C: I'd be there!

The boot.ini file is indeed the same on both disks. It reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I am not quite sure what it should be on the external disk.

 

[Ron Sommer]

One requirement of creating a bootable clone is for the first boot of the
clone to be without the original being connected or hidden.
After the first start, the original can be reconnected or unhidden.

The only way to see if the USB drive will boot is to reclone, disconnect or
hide the laptop C and try to boot.
--
Ronald Sommer

: Thanks Ron, see below.
:
: : > The registry on the USB drive refers to the C: drive which is the USB
: > drive.
: It doesn't appear so. The USB drive stays as the E: drive. The registry on
: the E: drive indeed refers to everything being on the C: drive, since it's
a
: copy of the original registry.
:
: > You also have the laptop C.
: Yes, the internal drive is C: but I have only one C: drive, not 2.
:
: > The operating system on a cloned partition is going to retain the
original
: > drive letter.
: Yes, I identified this as a problem. I suppose you mean the same thing as
in
: your first point, which is that the registry retains the original drive
: letter. Where else would the operating system retain the original drive
: letter?
:
: > You need to put something on the Desktop so you know which XP has
booted.
: Not really. I know it doesn't boot from the USB drive. The LED changes to
: red briefly at the beginning but then stays green (inactive) when Windows
: loads and the internal disk activity indicator flashes.
:
: If only I could tell the system to swap drive E: and drive C: I'd be
there!
:
: The boot.ini file is indeed the same on both disks. It reads:
:
: [boot loader]
: timeout=30
: default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
: [operating systems]
: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
: Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
:
: I am not quite sure what it should be on the external disk.
: > --
: > Ronald Sommer
: >
snipped