Storage forum: Installing Windows on an external hard drive

Microsoft has yet to offer an install to USB or Firewire drives. You can however install LINUX to such drives.

Don't like this Windows limitation? Call them up.

Bob

I am installing XP Pro on my external USB HD right now? It is a Firewire/USB drive. I could not install Windoze while connected to the firewire interface but the USB interface seems to be working just fine.

I currently have linux installed on my laptops hard drive. I dont want to wipe out my hard drive to install windows. I need windows XP to use a certain program for my work and I have an installation CD for windows XP but unfortunately I dont know how to install it on an external (20GB) USB hard drive that I have. Can you please tell me how you installed Windows XP on your hard drive, could you please tell me step by step.

Thank you,
I hope you can help me because I have searched everywhere for an answer and cant seem to find a solution to my problem.

insaid of using an external hard drive use an internal one and put it in yur computer to install windows then take it out and put it in an external hard drive case that you can get on E-BAY for a buck


simple

I've seen the install, install but never seen a full windows boot and be usuable from other than SCSI externals.

SATA externals are today's externals for such needs.

Bob

But be aware while Bart figured it all out, Microsoft came calling.

Bob

BARTPE is a the unoffical form of window's Pre-installation enviroment, and basically it sucks unless ur doin some networkin, IT DOESNT DO ANYTHIN!!!

o except partition and mozilla firefox

now im just spammin.lol

there is a way to do this. i am a field tech and i use a 20gb usb hdd for diags. and its just plain damn nice to have on a job just in case cant boot the one in the system. the only thing is that the system board bios on the motherboard needs to have an option for a usb hdd or usb external device as a boot option. i just unpluged my hdd inside the case. pluged in the drive and then put in a install disk and boot up. when it ask to press any key to boot from cd-rom drive. then u load up the setup. and when it gets to the format page, if 1`itshows the drive in there 2. its the correct size. then formate with ur preferd formate i personly use ntfs if possible with xp< and then formate and install. u then with that same bios option can move usb to top device and every time u have usb pluged in. will boot that one first then if u cancle that on start up with advanced boot device menu(commonly f12 on startup) check ur motherboard manule for more details. u should then be able to boot windows to full desktop. u may want to if u wish to section off a partion for drivers alone. and just cary arround the drivers for ur systems if this is home. or at lest a version of winternals. or maybe a ultmute boot cd(ubcd) and that way u can spec out any machine and even with winternals u should be able to at least get online to dl more drivers.