Installing Vista on USB or Firewire

[Guest]

Trying to install Vista on USB or firewire external drive here. Drive is not
Sata or eSata. Cannot boot to load Winloader. Checking the bios I see that
there is no listing for USB or firewire drive supported. Now from reading in
this thread:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...075751e&cat=&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

I see that GRUB can be used. Is there any other way to boot and install. Is
there going to be a new build that will allow you to install external storage
drive?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

That thread is in THIS newsgroup. We probably don't know anymore today than
we did yesterday.

Do NOT try to install and boot Vista to a firewire or usb external hard
drive. Forget it. Really, really, forget it. Please. It is not supported
and no indication that it will be.

 

[Mario Rosario]

Now that's a novel idea. There may be a way to make it work if the
motherboard support boot from usb drive. I have one such motherboard.

Suppose you install Vista on local drive, just a normal installation, get
everything to work. Then physically move the drive into a USB enclosure. Ya
think it'll work?

Mario

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No.

Now that's a novel idea. There may be a way to make it work if the
motherboard support boot from usb drive. I have one such motherboard.

Suppose you install Vista on local drive, just a normal installation, get
everything to work. Then physically move the drive into a USB enclosure.
Ya think it'll work?

Mario

 

[Mario Rosario]

Short but sweet.

No.

 

[Mario Rosario]

Come to think of it, it isn't too difficult to try. I just have to move my
current Vista disk into a usb enclosure. Then change the bios to boot off
the usb drive.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

My understanding is that the controllers used in the drives are not
detectible in time for the device to be bootable. The BIOS may have the
door open but that's about all. The usb host controller is loaded way too
late for that to work so some work with EFI would be needed and I have no
idea what that would be.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

As I recall, advances in EFI permits OS/X to do something like that. I am
in the process of setting up my MacBook Pro to use a volume on an external
SATA drive in just that way for backup purposes. I am not sure about usb,
but I'll ask in some of my Mac forums. I already know that my Windows
partition cannot do it even though the firmware in the Mac permits OS/X to.
I'm new at this as far as OS/X goes, so if anyone wants to jump all over me,
go for it.

 

[Mario Rosario]

I lost my appetite to try it. Too much work.

As I recall, advances in EFI permits OS/X to do something like that. I am
in the process of setting up my MacBook Pro to use a volume on an external
SATA drive in just that way for backup purposes. I am not sure about usb,
but I'll ask in some of my Mac forums. I already know that my Windows
partition cannot do it even though the firmware in the Mac permits OS/X
to. I'm new at this as far as OS/X goes, so if anyone wants to jump all
over me, go for it.

 

[Guest]

Well I just bit the bullet and installed Vista on an internal drive.
I had a dream though. :~)