Booting from a USB drive that was originally a boot drive

Booting from a USB drive that was originally a boot drive When Win 7 went RTM, I upgraded my laptop from XP. But to protect myself against the possibility of having data inaccessible, I got a new disk and put it in the laptop, and took the old (XP) disk and put it in a USB enclosure.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 254

Total answers/comments: 1

Comments display order:

Guest [Entry]

"If creating a bootable USB drive with Windows only were as easy as drive cloning or a repair installation.

Windows is not designed to boot and run from USB.

I wouldn't say it is entirely impossible but it certainly is a tough enough task to do a fresh (fully fledged, not BartPE) Windows installation onto a USB drive.

Over at eeeuser.com we have a decent wiki, that'll keep you busy for a day or two, at least you'll get an idea what is involved in the process.

Windows XP Professional Installation Onto SD or SDHC card

Replace 'SD or SDHC card' with your external USB drive and have fun. Keep in mind that this was written specifically for the Eee PC so you'll have to change certain settings to your requirements."