Oxen_Schwantz
asked on
Boot Vista from external USB HDD.
I have a HDD that was in my laptop (HP DV9000). Vista os is installed on the HD. I have put the HD in a USB 2.0 external case and would like to boot from it. When I try I get a BSOD.
What must I do to get this HD to boot? I have selected to boot from an external USB device in BIOS as the first device and I get drive activity during the boot but no joy.
What must I do to get this HD to boot? I have selected to boot from an external USB device in BIOS as the first device and I get drive activity during the boot but no joy.
ASKER
Perhaps I was not clear as to what I wanted, but...
I alreay have vista OS on the HDD--I want to boot that OS not install it.
Am I misreading what you sent me?
I alreay have vista OS on the HDD--I want to boot that OS not install it.
Am I misreading what you sent me?
It's probably blue-screening because it doesn't know what drivers to use - you have installed disk drivers that are specific to your machine on the drive and so Windows wants to use those.
You can't just boot an OS from a drive like you can under Mac OS X.
If you want to be able to run Vista off the drive you'll have to install it to the drive so your PC will set up those drivers as the primary disk for booting.
Something to try (but it's not guaranteed to work) is to boot into the drive while it's inserted into the laptop drive bay, delete the IDE or SATA controller in Device Manager (you will get a popup which you can ignore) and then shut down. Then try booting it off the external drive.
Worst case is you'll have to plug the drive back into your laptop and re-install the controller devices in Windows.
Make sure you've backed stuff up though- if you mess up the drive there's no guarantee you can get it all back during this :)
You can't just boot an OS from a drive like you can under Mac OS X.
If you want to be able to run Vista off the drive you'll have to install it to the drive so your PC will set up those drivers as the primary disk for booting.
Something to try (but it's not guaranteed to work) is to boot into the drive while it's inserted into the laptop drive bay, delete the IDE or SATA controller in Device Manager (you will get a popup which you can ignore) and then shut down. Then try booting it off the external drive.
Worst case is you'll have to plug the drive back into your laptop and re-install the controller devices in Windows.
Make sure you've backed stuff up though- if you mess up the drive there's no guarantee you can get it all back during this :)
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Here is an article:
http://www.techmixer.com/install-windows-vista-from-bootable-usb-flash-memory-drive/