Anyone boot XP from a USB2 hard drive?

I used True Image v9 2289 to image my C drive that is on my DELL notebook. The ENTIRE drive. Contains the Dell diagnostic partition as well as my C partition which contains XP SP2. The backup went fine. No errors, verified just fine.

I then restored this image to a Toshiba 80GB notebook hard drive that I use with a USB2IDE adaptor. The restore also completed with no errors.

My notebook allows me to boot from a USB device, so no problem with this. However, went I boot from the USB device I get the Windows XP boot screen and then I get a BSOD with a STOP: 0x0000007b error code.

Has anyone successfully booted XP from a USB2 device? Or is this an exercise in futility? I was hoping that I could create a test XP environment on a USB2 hard drive to test out all sorts of things without harming my production drive.

 

The error code you mention, is caused by Windows getting all bent out of shape due to a different IDE controller. That is it knows about the IDE controller used to install it on your C: drive, but the USB uses a different controller - so Windows thinks you're being a naughty person and complains.

By the way this will also happen if one changes your motherboard and have a different embedded IDE controller.

This is only because you are booting from the USB drive. To get around this, the following things can be tried.

With your Dell XP CD, boot from CD, choose INSTALL, from second menu choose REPAIR and select the USB XP entry(note this is the second repair option, NOT the first that appears asking about repair console), then XP will delete the system files and re-install on the USB drive.

This will then recognise the USB controller. However you will get the same problem if you copy your USB installation back to your C: drive. Just imaging the software back and forth should'nt have this problem.

If this fails, then you could try the sysprep utility BEFORE imaging

Colin

 

I had a feeling that this might be the cause.

I like the idea of doing the repair but before I try it I read somewhere that Windows will NOT install to a removable device. If this is so then I imagine the repair might not work either.

 

Maybe, I haven't actually tried to install to a firewire/USB device.


I just reread your first post - The other problem you will get is that the Dell installation, will at best require activation if loaded on to a Toshiba or may not install at all.

Technically speaking, Microsoft might look on this as an illegal install as the licence for the Dell is for one machine and one backup - though backup may be open to interpretation in various juristictions.

I realise you are not trying to install one licence between two machines (thereby having a free copy of XP) , but it is how the Microsoft protection system thinks.

A way around this, might be to whip out your Toshiba HDD and insert it in your Dell. Fiddly I know, as I use a laptop, with a spare harddrive to test out TI and other OS's that take my fancy from time to time.

Colin

 

Yeah I know I can just swap the two drives in my notebook but I had a bad experience with the last notebook I had doing just this.

After swapping drives a few times the notebook would very often refuse to even recognize my hard drive. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't. I have no idea what went wrong. A bent pin perhaps. Who knows?

This left me 'gun shy' as far as swapping drives again. I know it's the easiest way but quite frankly I can't bring myself to do it again as silly as this sounds.

So I was hoping that the USB thing would work. It still might but I have a feeling that the Repair won't like the removable drive.

Isn't there something I can do on my Toshiba disk as far as getting things straight regarding the change from IDE to USB? I have full access to all the files. I even have a utility which I can use to modify the Registry on the Toshiba. Sounds like a fun thing to do if I knew where to start.

 

registry hacking to my knowledge won't help here. May be playing with hardware profiles, but I'm not sure this would work.

The activation bit of XP doesn't live as a registry entry as such. Maybe some form of pre-install utility would work -- but again I don't know.

Of course, if you work for a large company, it might be worth seeing what terms of their MS licence they have - you might legally be able to use a corporate version of XP which would solve all your problems.

Colin

 

Repair is not an option. My USB drive doesn't even show up on the list of Windows installations. Just my normal IDE Windows installation shows up.

Doesn't look to promising. Why then do they even have a BIOS option to boot from USB? For Linux perhaps? Certainly not for Windows it seems.