Install and run from thumb drive?

E

Ed from AZ

I've got an older desk top with an aging hard drive that has a bad
whine. This machine is used for a very limited application, and is
fine for that use - except for the noise.

Can XP SP2 install and run from a thumb drive? THe idea is to tel the
machine to boot from the thumb drive and run the OS and a couple of
programs from there. No hard drive, no whine.

Good idea or bad?
Ed
 
B

Bruce Hagen

Ed from AZ said:
I've got an older desk top with an aging hard drive that has a bad
whine. This machine is used for a very limited application, and is
fine for that use - except for the noise.

Can XP SP2 install and run from a thumb drive? THe idea is to tel the
machine to boot from the thumb drive and run the OS and a couple of
programs from there. No hard drive, no whine.

Good idea or bad?
Ed
Click to expand...


I don't know about your question, but hard drives don't usually whine. I
would be giving the fans a super good cleaning out. Remove them if you can
and get some 'Air In A Can' to blow them out. Even if they look clean,
they may well be plugged up internally where you can't see.
 
L

LVTravel

Ed from AZ said:
I've got an older desk top with an aging hard drive that has a bad
whine. This machine is used for a very limited application, and is
fine for that use - except for the noise.

Can XP SP2 install and run from a thumb drive? THe idea is to tel the
machine to boot from the thumb drive and run the OS and a couple of
programs from there. No hard drive, no whine.

Good idea or bad?
Ed
Click to expand...

Windows XP and any other later operating systems are designed to NOT be able
to be installed onto a USB external device. The installation will fail as
soon as the removable media is detected.
There has been some reports that people have hacked the OS to be able to do
this but no one has successfully posted anything about it.

There are other operating systems, Linux specifically and all it's
offshoots, that can be booted from a USB device and there are open source
programs that will read and write to Office standards.

The issue you may run into with this type of setup is that USB key devices
(thumb drive) has a finite lifetime in number of read/write cycles they will
do. They can fail at any time and often do.
 
M

Mark Adams

Ed from AZ said:
I've got an older desk top with an aging hard drive that has a bad
whine. This machine is used for a very limited application, and is
fine for that use - except for the noise.

Can XP SP2 install and run from a thumb drive? THe idea is to tel the
machine to boot from the thumb drive and run the OS and a couple of
programs from there. No hard drive, no whine.

Good idea or bad?
Ed
.
Click to expand...

Bad idea. XP is not designed to run from a USB device, not to mention your
older hardware may not even be capable of booting from USB. Buy a new hard
drive and clone the OS to the new drive. If you are really concerned about
noise, buy a solid state hard drive; no moving parts.
 
D

Db

yes, you can boot with
a thumb drive,

however I don't know
about running programs
with the o.s. on the thumb
drive.

it would make sense
that you can't because
all the programs you
have have been integrated
with the o.s. on the hd.

but if you want to have
some fun loading the
o.s. from the thumb
drive,

you will need to install
2 programs on the
thumb drive.

I don't remember
what exactly the do.

I think 1 program
formats/prepares
the thumb drive.

then the next one
installs a boot mgr.

if I recall the 2
programs can be
downloaded from
the hewit packer
website.

--
--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>

DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This NNTP newsgroup is evolving to:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
 
L

LVTravel

Db said:
ps:

you will need a min
of 2 gig on thum to
install the os

and don't forget to
change the bootup
in the bios.

gl

--
--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>

DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This NNTP newsgroup is evolving to:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
Click to expand...

But you still can't boot XP from a USB removable drive. It won't allow
itself to be installed on a USB external drive.
 
E

Ed from AZ

But I also need to run Word, Excel, and VB6.
And have USB support for a four-port hub, because I'll have the drive,
a keyboard, and a mouse with only two USB ports.

Ed
 
L

LVTravel

Ed from AZ said:
But I also need to run Word, Excel, and VB6.
And have USB support for a four-port hub, because I'll have the drive,
a keyboard, and a mouse with only two USB ports.

Ed
Click to expand...

You also can not install any Office programs to run from a USB removable
drive. They have to be a "fixed" drive in the system.
 
B

Bob I

Humm, I've never seen a mouse with USB ports, much less 2 of them. All
kidding aside, you aren't going to be running a setup like that with
Windows XP. The only way Windows XP can even potentially run from a
drive on USB is you have to hack the USB port recognition features so
they aren't available any more. Beginning to get the picture?
 
E

Ed from AZ

Beginning to get the picture?
Click to expand...

Long time ago!
Time to search for a "new" IDE hard drive.
Geeks.com has a few in the 20-30 dollar range.
Might even be able to find one locally for less.
'Course, that's where the current noisy one came from .....

Oh, well ... the adventure continues!
Thanks for all the responses.

Ed
 
E

Ed from AZ

Okay - just gotta ask --
Can I run either Win 98SE or 2000 off a thumb drive?
(Just searching for alternate paths that won't cost me anything out of
pocket!)

Ed
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

Installing XP from USB Thumb drive 1
Thumb Drive Issues 2
USB thumb drive 12
Linux Mint no sound. 2
How to format thumb drive as NTFS? 4
Hard drive crashed 6
Dos Driver for a USB Flash ("Thumb") Drive 5
Removing thumb drive 3

Top