Making a Bootable External IDE hard drive in enclosure? MudCrab

Hi

I am using Acronis Version 11.0 (build*8,053)

I have a 6GB IDE external hard drive which I have placed in an enclosure so that it connects via USB.

I have used Acronis to clone my actual hard drive (including OS etc) which is 40GB SATA.

I was hoping then to be able boot from my external drive.

I have tried this but it does not work and I just get the
Blue Screen of Death

Anyone know what I need to do?

Thanks in advance

 

Windows will not boot from a usb device .... not yet anyway. If you have an IDE channel inside the computer, you can connect the IDE drive to it and see if it will boot - disconnect the original Sata drive first.

 

Thanks for the reply DwnNdrty

I had searched the forum and found this thread
How to Create an Acronis Bootable USB Hard Disk
Does this thread mean a USB hard disk which from which Windows can boot?
If not what does an
Acronis Bootable
USB Hard Disk mean?

Thanks, sorry might be an obvious difference but I'm a bit clueless about boots

 

It means that the Acronis Bootable Hard drive is a substitute for the TI Rescue/recovery CD as the bootloader files on the CD have been installed into the hard drive. This means that you can boot into the Acronis backup/restore program (without CD involved) and have the TI archives on the same hard disk (different partitions) as the Rescue files.

 

It means a USB hard disk that can boot the recovery version of True Image; the same version that is on the recovery CD.

As DwnNdrty said, Windows was specifically designed to prevent booting from USB devices. It can boot from internal hard disks only.

 

Guys thank you for clearing that up.

Now this is a bit of the topic off but is there any way that I can connect an IDE hard drive to a Dell Laptop which takes SATA hard drives.

I was thinking maybe there might be a connector of some type which would not involve opening the case, I have a Dell Inspiron and the hard drive slots into the slide so the SATA connection is somewhat accessible from outside.

I have checked eBay
eBay UK Search ("IDE to SATA","IDE to SATA")

According to the descriptions there are a few results but I can't work out which might be applicable
For example would this one work?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250393922805
All help would be appreciated

Thanks

 

Ahh! So this is a laptop we're talking about. If the purpose of making a Clone is so that you have a backup of the laptop drive in case of drive failure, then a better option is to use the Backup feature. This makes a compressed Image of the drive which you can save on the external drive. If you have to change the laptop drive, you can restore the Image to the new drive using the bootable Rescue Media CD.

 

Hi DwnNdrty

I have a very specific requirement in that I am trying to get Windows to boot from an IDE Hard drive
(but my laptop takes SATA hard drives)

 

Acronite,

You probably need a combination of the following, or something similar. I haven't test this but in theory it should work...

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.19734
http://estore.circuitassembly.com/products/22-Pin-Male-to-22-Pin-Male-Sata-Extender-Cable.html

And if your IDE HDD is 3.5" instead of 2.5", you will need more adapters also...
http://www.cablesonline.net/44pinmalidc2.html
http://www.jr.com/qvs/pe/QVS_CC2200
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=990792&CatId=68


LOL, wow! Personally I would just buy a spare 2.5" SATA HDD and clone the IDE HDD to it.

 

Thanks for the info FBMachines

LOL..... I have a very specific requirement.

Thanks for everyones help on this thread.

 

Sounds like it! Let us know the results if you find anything that will work.

 

I was thinking about it a little more and what if you use put the IDE HDD in an external enclosure with an internal IDE connection and an external eSATA connection (be careful which one you choose because most won't convert IDE to eSATA but some will). Then just use an eSATA cable to the laptop's internal SATA connection (or eSATA if you laptop has that). You might need a gender changer for the SATA connection though or a SATA to eSATA convertor and then just use a standard eSATA cable between the laptop and the external enclosure.

Does that sound doable? What size is your IDE HDD (2.5" or 3.5")?