Re: USB HDD as Bootable Drive

It's a tough process. XP by it's nature won't install on any Mass
Storage device identified as "Removable". Some folks have been
able to take an existing XP image and restore it to a USB flash
device. It would be handy - but with all kinds of issues. First one
being Activation. Every time you booted it from a different PC it's
hardware Hash code would change. You would be forever doing
a re-activation. The only way I can think of to get this to work
would be get Microsoft Virtual PC and install on all 3 PC's. Then
buy one of the new 4-Gigabyte Flash drives. Create a XP VPC
and store it on the Flash Drive. Then no matter which machine
you use you could load up the VPC. The downside is the Virtual
machine has limitations with hardware (USB).

"George K" <happy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23HosxfmpFHA.3048@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I currently use on a regular basis, three machines, mine, one at my son's
home and one at work. Due to the programs I use and the associated files, I
find that most of the work I do has to be done at home (most of the programs
are mine) since I do not want to install these programs on the other
machines.

I have followed some of the discussion regarding using Scandisks as bootable
drives and would like to know if, it is possible to use a 3-1/2" floppy and
a portable USB hard drive to bypass all three machines hard drives and run
the OS directly from the portable USB drive.

In most cases the drivers for USB devices load after the OS has started to
load, but can these be initiated as part of a bootable floppy which then
loads from my portable drive.


.

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