Re: Boot to USB

It mustn't.

John

Unknown wrote:

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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