Can I install WIndows 7 onto a portable USB hard drive?

[coomarlin]

I recently downloaded the Beta version of Windows 7. Instead of messing around with partitions and things I was wondering if I can run it from an external USB hard drive? Can I set my bios to boot to USB and accomplish this?

Would be a good clean way to test without any potential hard to my existing XP system.

I searched google for this and found that I can install Windows 7 from a external drive or USB stick. Just wondering if I can actually run the OS off of one.

 

[jonesthewine]

What are you waiting for...try it and let us know. Have you looked around your BIOS to see if the option of booting from USB is supported?

Of course, you'll need a fairly large thumbdrive. The W7 folder on my laptop is 9.75 GB.

 

[coomarlin]

I'll try it. I have a 250GB portable WD hard drive I was going to try and use. I just thought some of you may have already tried this and had some insight. But 16GB thumbdrive would be cool too.

I have a foxconn AM2+ moboard and I know it has a boot to USB option. However I've never used it.

 

[SunnyD]

I believe the answer STILL is no. Vista was supposed to fix this, but it's an inherent design of the NT USB stack that lets you not do this. Vista had a solution somewhat, which involved using a RAM disk and "installing" the kernel from USB into the RAM disk and proceeding to load the USB drivers that way. I'm sure Win7 will carry on this tradition of "not really" supporting it properly.

 

[djkym]

sorry to bring it up, but just tried and gives me an 'cannot do' type error when i tried installing onto a usb hd... there's prolly some .ini files that need to be edited (like for win xp)

 

[mcm]

Just read an article with an approach you can use that might work:
http://www.betanews.com/articl...ual-devices/1252442023

 

[yinan]

I believe you can do this because now you can boot Windows 7 from a VHD file, I see no reason why that vhd cannot be on a removable disk.

 

[corkyg]

ABout the only way that it might be permissable is if the resulting portable OS could only be used on the machine that prepared it. Otherwise, you would have rampant piracy out of control.

Having said that, I have a bootable image of my Vista OS on an external HDD - cloned by Acronis. I can try to boot from it, and it starts, but soon results in a BSOD. Basically, a USB connection is not fast enough.

 

[Nothinman]

Having said that, I have a bootable image of my Vista OS on an external HDD - cloned by Acronis. I can try to boot from it, and it starts, but soon results in a BSOD. Basically, a USB connection is not fast enough.

The speed isn't the issue, the fact that the USB drivers are loaded too late in the boot process is the issue.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The speed isn't the issue, the fact that the USB drivers are loaded too late in the boot process is the issue.

I don't think so. The initial wait was long, but then the Vista loading graphic with the moving bar was running. That tells me the USB drivers were already loaded, otherwise it could not have started loading correctly. After about 5 passes of the green bar cluster, the BSOD appeared.

That tells me something else is at work. Probably not speed, but something that told the OS that this was an external drive, and the OS said, "Whoa!!!"

 

[Shmee]

a bit off topic, but what is the easiest way to install win7 FROM a Usb drive?

 

[Shmee]

nvm, I installed it from HDD with daemon tools. Much faster

 

[corkyg]

Good solution. I have installed from a Thumb drive. I used UltraISO to record the DVD onto a thumbdrive. It worked. But, the HDD is the fastest. Thumbdrive is good for portability, especially in cases where the machine has no DVD drive, eg., an ultra-light laptop.

 

[Nothinman]

I don't think so. The initial wait was long, but then the Vista loading graphic with the moving bar was running. That tells me the USB drivers were already loaded, otherwise it could not have started loading correctly. After about 5 passes of the green bar cluster, the BSOD appeared.

The logo and "progress" bar mean nothing, the first necessar parts are loaded via BIOS calls. What did the BSOD say?

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The logo and "progress" bar mean nothing, the first necessar parts are loaded via BIOS calls. What did the BSOD say?

Here is the BSOD: BSOD

I just did the whole test again in order to get the BSOD for you.

I connected the external drive with a good working clone of the OS drive. I then instructed the PC to boot from that drive using BIOS. The drive then ran and was reading for almost 30 seconds. Then the logo started, and after about 5 seconds, the above BSOD.

 

[Nothinman]

The "Stop 7B" error occurs when your configuration is missing a component that is required to boot your device. Examples of these components include the PCI bus and the IDE controller.

So yea, it couldn't get to the drive because the USB drivers weren't loaded yet.

 

[corkyg]

Interesting. Anyway to put the drivers into that drive so they get loaded?

 

[Nothinman]

Interesting. Anyway to put the drivers into that drive so they get loaded?

I have no idea, I don't know how Windows decides when to load what. I would guess that they have at leat 2 classes of drivers, one being early boot drivers that need to be loaded to get to the rest of the system. And I would guess that the USB core isn't part of the early drivers so you'd have to find some way to make it load both the USB core and USB storage driver early enough so that it can mount the drive to get to the rest of the system.

 

[Shmee]

also, IDK if this is applicable, but could you try eSata with the external enclosure, if it has it?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Shmee
also, IDK if this is applicable, but could you try eSata with the external enclosure, if it has it?

You certainly could boot to a SATA disk in an external housing if the SATA controller reports the disk as an "internal" disk. That's how most (all?) of Silicon Image-based SATA controllers see their attached disks, whether they are connected as SATA or eSATA. I don't know what Windows does if it sees the disk as removable, which is how some SATA controllers will report an eSATA-connected disk.

Originally posted by: corkyg
I don't think so. The initial wait was long, but then the Vista loading graphic with the moving bar was running. That tells me the USB drivers were already loaded, otherwise it could not have started loading correctly. After about 5 passes of the green bar cluster, the BSOD appeared.

As Nothinman notes, that initial screen with the moving bar will happen even if if Windows can't see the disk at all. The 0x0000007B error usually means that Windows isn't able to see the boot disk because it's missing proper disk controller drivers.