Booting from external harddrive?

[KingLou]

Ok, this is a multi-part question and I don't know if the two issues are related.

I just purchased this notebook computer:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...350&CatId=4935

After about 5 minutes I decided I hated Windows 8.

So, I bought a new hard drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178340

I swapped that hard drive into the new notebook, and did a fresh Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. It took me a while to find all the correct drivers....but there is one I cannot seem to find no matter how hard I look.

In my hardware profile I have the yellow triangle exclamation point next to "Universal Serial Bus (USB) controller." I've come to determine I'm missing the USB 3.0 driver for the machine, and can't find it. My USB ports work, but it seems USB 3.0 does not.

Anyone know where I can find this driver? What am I missing? I searched the net, the driver disk that came with the machine (which is a pita, since most of what is on there is Win 8 specific)....the asus page. Ugh.


Next question. I didn't want to just ditch that hard drive that came out of the notebook, nor did I necessarily want to ditch Win 8 altogether. So I decided I would stick the drive as is with Win 8 on it into an external enclosure.

This one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817689001


I figured I'd be able to boot Win 8 straight from the drive. However, when I start up the notebook and choose the USB drive as the boot device, it boots up the Win 8 loading screen, then I get a quick flash of an error message that is too quick to read before the computer reboots itself.

So, what am I missing here? I am assuming it has something to do with the fact that Windows 8 is recognizing that it's trying to be booted off an external usb device and doesn't really like it. How can I work around this?

I would love to have the computer running Win 7 properly, with the option of running Win 8 off the external usb drive when I feel like it, or need Win 8 for any reason.

All help greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Matt1970]

In Device Manager right click the device and select properties. Select the details tab and then in the Property dropdown box select hardware ID. Usuallt the top result in the box below is the one you want. Right click it and select copy. Paste it into Google and add "Windows 7 driver" at the end. Just be careful of those fake driver sites that just want you to download crap.

I have had some luck with a program called Slim Drivers when all else fails. I'de say it has about an 80% success rate.

 

[Ketchup]

If that doesn't work there is a decent chance it's this one:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=21129

 

[pete1229]

You could purchase a hard drive caddy where you mount the original windows 8 HDD, it then fits into the optical drive slot and you will essentially have a dual hdd laptop and you can then choose which drive you want to boot from. The only draw back is you will loose the ability to play dvds etc. But there are ways around that also with external drives and such also you could just pop the original optical drive back in when needed.

Also did you search here for the USB driver you need?
http://www.service.asus.com/#!downloads/c1wax

 

[KingLou]

If that doesn't work there is a decent chance it's this one:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=21129

Awesome!!! That was the one. Thank you everyone for the help.

Alright....driver issues solved. Now I need to figure out this booting from the external thing.

It's not a total loss if I can't do it (but someone in reviews I was reading for this laptop said they did the same exact thing successfully....too bad they didn't say how....but of course it was just a review). I can of course just swap the drives back and forth, but getting to the hard drive in this laptop is not exactly easy......not "horribly" difficult.....just not something I would want to do if I had an alternative. So, hopefully I can figure out this external harddrive thing.

 

[pete1229]

KingLou if you follow my suggestion, no need to swap out HDD's.

 

[KingLou]

Thanks pete....but I'm already past that. I messed around too damn much with the setting of the original Windowns 8 harddrive (that is now mounted in the external usb enclosure).....and bricked the damn Win 8 install. Proper bricked.

Oh well....I'm in no hurry for Windows 8 obviously.