Installing/Booting MS XP Pro, Vista or dual boot configuration from a USB hard drive

[Ismael]

Hello Everyone,

Is there a way to install MS XP Pro or Vista on a USB hard drive and make
either XP or Vista bootable from the USB hard drive? Could we get a dual
boot configuration work from the USB hard drive?

Any help/ideas are much appreciated,


Ismael

 

[Don Phillipson]

Is there a way to install MS XP Pro or Vista on a USB hard drive and make
either XP or Vista bootable from the USB hard drive? Could we get a dual
boot configuration work from the USB hard drive?

PCs are not (yet) designed this way: so your plan would
work only if the ROM and BIOS settings could be preconfigured
first to load a USB driive and then look to it for booting code.

 

[Peter Foldes]

No. Not to a USB Hard Drive

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

PCs are not (yet) designed this way: so your plan would
work only if the ROM and BIOS settings could be preconfigured
first to load a USB driive and then look to it for booting code.

PCs are already designed this way - I regularly boot various PCs to USB
drives for certain tasks. Linux, DOS, the Ultimate Boot CD on USB, and
others will all achieve this.

The problem is with the way Windows works. It normally cannot do this,
although there are those on the web who have managed to get it working
through various means, but it isn't for the faint of heart, nor is it
portable from PC to PC unless they have almost identical hardware.