Re: Boot to USB

Why do you suppose the system HD MUST be C?
"John John" <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23i0$TMO7HHA.5980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You don't know what you are talking about. If the computer supports
booting from USB devices it doesn't care what device is stuck in the USB
port. Other than being able to boot form USB this has absolutely
*nothing* to do with the BIOS and it has all to do with the Windows
architecture and the Windows boot process. Instead of posting nonsense
you should put your time to better use and do a bit of reading and educate
yourself!

John

Unknown wrote:

This is a BIOS situation and not Windows.
"John John" <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eJeZHrN7HHA.484@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That won't work. Booting Windows XP on USB drives is unsupported. There
are some who claim that after much fiddling about they have gotten this
to work but for all intents and purposes for most users it doesn't work.
No doubt that in the not so distant future booting Windows on USB drives
will be possible, maybe it will be possible with Vista but I don't expect
that Microsoft will put much, if any, effort in getting desktop XP to
boot this way, XP is nearing the end of its life cycle (mainstream
support ends in less than 2 years) and users shouldn't expect any major
revamping or any significant new features to be added to it.

I am no expert on this and I stand to be corrected, but if I remember
correctly I think that I read that one of the problem in getting Windows
to boot on USB drives is in the way USB is enumerated or in the way the
stack is loaded when Windows is booted. I think it is done well after
the Session Manager is started so it's like a catch 22 situation, Windows
can't boot on USB drives because it only loads the USB stack when it is
almost done booting up. This is particularly problematic with the
creation of the pagefile, the creation of the pagefile is one of the
first thing that the Session Manager does and if the USB stack is not
loaded the Session Manager cannot create the pagefile.

However, booting on USB flash devices is possible with Windows XP
Embedded SP2 (flash only, not hard disk), so the possibility that it can
be done with desktop XP on a hard drive is not so far fetched. If you
are adept and prepared to put the necessary effort into it you can
research this further and "play" with it.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/rem-stor.mspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa940915.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912927.aspx

John

nemy35 wrote:


I copy my EIDE Western Digital 80 gig C:\ drive, to a same make & size
EIDE drive installed in an external USB 2.0 enclosure Dynex model
DX-HDEN10 using Norton Ghost 10.0 connected to my USB bus, making the
copied drive active, bootable & with a copied MBR.
I would like to disconnect my C:\ drive & from a cold boot, boot to the
copied drive on the USB 2. bus, so that becomes the main drive.
I thought this was doable by changing the BIOS boot 1st device to
ARMD-HDD, but that didn't work.
Is this doable, & if so what do I need to do to make it happen?
Regards...Don



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