Cannot boot from USB Drive

Set up: Windows XP, 40GB WDC SATA Disk (System), 200GB Maxtor SATA Disk (Data), USB Disk 20GB WDC Eide.

Used Acronis True Image Ver 9.0 Build 2337 to Clone System disk to USB drive. Seemed to work fine.

Disconnected System disk and during startup indicated to boot from USB drive. After a while a message appeared:

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

When did that it went around and the message reappeared. Did a serach and found that NTLDR is in folder I386 on both drives.

I would love to use Acronis to create a backup for my system disk.
Please help.

Jake

 

You have created a backup of your system disk. It is unusal to use cloning for backups however if you replace you system disk with the disk from your usb drive it should boot just fine.
Is your computer capable of booting from an USB drive? can you set it to be the first boot option in the BIOS?

Xpilot.

 

I'm afraid that you will no be able to boot Windows from USB drive because Windows does not support USB hard disk drives as the primary boot device. <Look here>. I also had this problem after cloning to USB. I connected the drive directly (not with USB cable) and then did as described <here>...and now it works)) and I am happy

Kento

 

Kento.
Have a look at xboot which is a backup device. It boots from a usb 2 providing the usb is bootable. Most motherboards now have bootable usb ports. I have used it several times.
John

 

crash79`,

Then I assume people from Microsoft are wrong?

Or I missunderstood something.

Kento

 

Yes.
I have exboot which is connected to a USB2 port, which in turn is a direct connection on the motherboard (not a USB card) and which is bootable. In order to use exboot this is a must. I shall stress again that all I have to do to restore my system, including the OS, is change the first connection in the BIOS. It takes approximately 25 mins to restore 11GB. Perfection, but expensive (£198.00) but of course it is a 200GB drive which can be used for other purposes as well. The motherboard must support USB Bootable.
John

 

I tried your advice Kento and installed the cloned hard disk into the computer and tried booting that way. After some fiddling it worked! So I guess one cannot boot from an USB device. At least not easily. It is a pity though since it would be convenient.

Meanwhile I installed the cloned disk permanently and will use it in case my primary boot disk gets destroyed by the avian flu or some other nasty virus.

Thanks all for prompt responses.

Jake