How can I make external HD bootable?

  • Thread starter Thread starter eddie
  • Start date Start date
E

eddie

I've seen similar posts, but haven't found quite the same situation tha
I have, so here it comes:

My old HD was filling up so I got got a 100GB hard drive and a US
enclosure to put it in. I copied (using xcopy) the drive to th
exernal drive, including the windows directory. I was hoping thi
would copy the system over and when the original HD got too full,
could take the new drive out of the USB enclosure, and put it in the P
itself in the place of the original drive. However, when I do that, th
error says "Operating System Not Found".

When both drives are running (original as main drive, and external US
drive as storage) I've also tried using my XP install disk to instal
XP onto the external drive, but it sees it but won't install via a US
link.

I need to replace the original drive, so how can I get XP loaded ont
the second drive? Thanks.

Eddi
 
WinXP can not boot from USB drive, or install to USB drive.
Also, you can't just xcopy the working system to another disk.
You need a special program like Ghost or Drive Image and so on.
Get an image copy program, let it format/partition the new drive and copy the system.
Change of system drive can trigger the XP registration, be prepared...
--PA
 
Pavel A. said:
WinXP can not boot from USB drive, or install to USB drive.
Also, you can't just xcopy the working system to another disk.
You need a special program like Ghost or Drive Image and so on.
Get an image copy program, let it format/partition the new drive and copy
the system.
Change of system drive can trigger the XP registration, be prepared...
--PA
Click to expand...

Eddie:
It's been a long time since I used the XCOPY command so I won't comment on
its usefulness for the specific purpose of transferring the contents of one
HD to another with the objective of creating a bootable destination disk.

As Pavel A. points out, the usual way to transfer the contents one HD to
another HD is by using a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton
Ghost to clone the drives. So you could clone your internal HD to the
external one. The USB external HD will not be bootable but you could remove
the drive from its enclosure and install it in place of your internal drive
and it will be bootable. You might also be interested to know that you could
clone the contents of that USB EHD back to the internal drive and the latter
will be bootable.

As you discovered, you cannot directly install the Windows XP OS onto a USB
EHD. That has been my experience as well. I have heard reports that it is
possible, but I've yet to come across an authoritative, confirmed report
supporting this capability.
Art
 
Open up the USB case remove the drive, open the PC case and connect it to the
internal IDE interface of the PC.

Unless it is identical to the original drive, Windows will not boot: anti
piracy features will prevent Windows from Starting: you can then perform a
Repair Installation and reimage Winodws. This will not change registry
settings for the applications, nor will you loose any personal data.

If you have an OEM edition of XP, this process will also fail as changing a
Hard Drive Model is contrary to the OEM licence agreement.
 
BAR said:
Open up the USB case remove the drive, open the PC case and connect it to
the
internal IDE interface of the PC.

Unless it is identical to the original drive, Windows will not boot: anti
piracy features will prevent Windows from Starting: you can then perform a
Repair Installation and reimage Winodws. This will not change registry
settings for the applications, nor will you loose any personal data.

If you have an OEM edition of XP, this process will also fail as changing
a
Hard Drive Model is contrary to the OEM licence agreement.
Click to expand...

BAR's statement that "Unless it is identical to the original drive, Windows
will not boot: anti
piracy features will prevent Windows from Starting..." is simply not so. If
you clone your internal drive to the external drive and install that cloned
drive in your computer as I have indicated above, there will be no problem
booting to that drive. It makes no difference if the cloned drive is a
different make & model than the source disk. The activation process will not
be an issue in this situation. No Repair install will be necessary. And it
makes no difference in this situation if the computer is an OEM machine.
Art
 
eddie said:
I've seen similar posts, but haven't found quite the same situation that
I have, so here it comes:

My old HD was filling up so I got got a 100GB hard drive and a USB
enclosure to put it in. I copied (using xcopy) the drive to the
exernal drive, including the windows directory. I was hoping this
would copy the system over and when the original HD got too full, I
could take the new drive out of the USB enclosure, and put it in the PC
itself in the place of the original drive. However, when I do that, the
error says "Operating System Not Found".

When both drives are running (original as main drive, and external USB
drive as storage) I've also tried using my XP install disk to install
XP onto the external drive, but it sees it but won't install via a USB
link.

I need to replace the original drive, so how can I get XP loaded onto
the second drive? Thanks.
Click to expand...

What you are trying to do just won't work. Your new HDD should have came
with a diskette to do this chore. Max blast and DataLifeguard are a couple.
There is a certain amount of switching from Master to Slave on your IDE
cable etc etc.
 
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