Install Vista on USB drive

[Kate]

I checked my setup and my laptop allows boot from USB drive. When I rebooted
after setting it for USB first, I had to unplug my USB drive to get it to
look at my C drive which is where XP is installed now.

1. So can I leave my XP drive in and install Vista on the USB drive from CD
drive. It's not a thumb but a 100GB sata HD

2. Do I choose which OS to boot with by whether that USB is plugged in or
not. I thought I remembered before it would give you x number of seconds to
tell which device to select at boot. maybe that was the old laptop that only
allowed HD or CD.

This could be the best of all possible worlds for me. I hope I can do it.

I'm thinking when Vista is up and I'm happy with it I could then have a
spare mirror of my successful install to fall back on if anything went wrong
later. I wish I'd realized I had this choice before the last 2 XP clean
installs. BTW, my laptop is HP if that has any bearing. I have constant
explorer breakdowns and wonder if it's XP or XP on HP
TY, Kate

 

[Jane C]

Hello Kate,

This will not work as Windows cannot boot from a USB drive.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

If you tried it you would more than likely get a polite message saying that
Windows Vista cannot install on a USB drive.

--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
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reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
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mail/post..

 

[Kate]

Darn. If I already had it installed would it read it and operate from that
USB drive?
Kate

 

[Rick Rogers]

Throughput would be too slow to be usable even if you did get it to work.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Extremely doubtful, Kate. Anyway as Rick pointed out in his reply the
throughput would be to slow. Remember the hard drive in your PC is much
faster at dealing with requests from the operating system than a USB drive
is.


--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Kate]

Thanks to you both
Kate

Extremely doubtful, Kate. Anyway as Rick pointed out in his reply the
throughput would be to slow. Remember the hard drive in your PC is much
faster at dealing with requests from the operating system than a USB drive
is.


--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable
for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of
the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Robert Pendell]

I checked my setup and my laptop allows boot from USB drive. When I rebooted
after setting it for USB first, I had to unplug my USB drive to get it to
look at my C drive which is where XP is installed now.

1. So can I leave my XP drive in and install Vista on the USB drive from CD
drive. It's not a thumb but a 100GB sata HD

2. Do I choose which OS to boot with by whether that USB is plugged in or
not. I thought I remembered before it would give you x number of seconds to
tell which device to select at boot. maybe that was the old laptop that only
allowed HD or CD.

This could be the best of all possible worlds for me. I hope I can do it.

I'm thinking when Vista is up and I'm happy with it I could then have a
spare mirror of my successful install to fall back on if anything went wrong
later. I wish I'd realized I had this choice before the last 2 XP clean
installs. BTW, my laptop is HP if that has any bearing. I have constant
explorer breakdowns and wonder if it's XP or XP on HP
TY, Kate

This is possible but it is unsupported. The only reason why Windows
cannot boot from a USB when installing from a standard CD (it will fail
on reboot) is because the USB drivers being installed are not setup as
being required to boot the OS. They are categorized as input devices
rather than boot devices. If you change it so that Windows treats them
as boot devices then it will work.

Why does it work? Windows loads input devices alot later in the boot
sequence. If it is required to boot then Windows will make sure to have
them loaded up so that when the BIOS hands over control to Windows then
the drivers will already be loaded. If the USB drivers are not present
then you will get a 0x7B error (INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE). I did a
proof of concept with an external 120GB hard drive and the only issue I
had hit was that Windows will still refuse to allow a swapfile on a
"removable" drive even though it is the system drive. All applications
worked as normal and any additional usb devices were detected correctly.

Source: http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

Once again this is NOT supported by Microsoft. It shows how to create a
new XP disc that will allow this. Vista is very similar except you must
do it post-install. I know I saw it out there somewhere. They did it
similar to the XP method. Post-install means that you first install it
with the drive internal to the system and modify the keys as needed.
Afterwards you move it to the external enclosure.

Now then I won't be able to help you beyond that. Good luck! Google is
your friend.

 

[Robert Pendell]

This is possible but it is unsupported. The only reason why Windows
cannot boot from a USB when installing from a standard CD (it will fail
on reboot) is because the USB drivers being installed are not setup as
being required to boot the OS. They are categorized as input devices
rather than boot devices. If you change it so that Windows treats them
as boot devices then it will work.

Why does it work? Windows loads input devices alot later in the boot
sequence. If it is required to boot then Windows will make sure to have
them loaded up so that when the BIOS hands over control to Windows then
the drivers will already be loaded. If the USB drivers are not present
then you will get a 0x7B error (INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE). I did a
proof of concept with an external 120GB hard drive and the only issue I
had hit was that Windows will still refuse to allow a swapfile on a
"removable" drive even though it is the system drive. All applications
worked as normal and any additional usb devices were detected correctly.

Source: http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

Once again this is NOT supported by Microsoft. It shows how to create a
new XP disc that will allow this. Vista is very similar except you must
do it post-install. I know I saw it out there somewhere. They did it
similar to the XP method. Post-install means that you first install it
with the drive internal to the system and modify the keys as needed.
Afterwards you move it to the external enclosure.

Now then I won't be able to help you beyond that. Good luck! Google is
your friend.

Ahh.... here is the thread where someone claims to have done Vista on a
USB drive.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=174858

P.S. - I bugged it during the beta that it would install to external
drives. I sent them the details and it was closed as "Won't Fix".
Microsoft knows about it but isn't doing anything about it in the
installer. This is an old bug because it was present in all versions of
the XP disc as well.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Seems a lot of work, Robert and judging by the last post in the channel9
link you provided certainly not for a novice user.

--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..