How the *bleep* do I set up XP on a USB 2.0 cased hard drive?

[AndrewPaulNet]

Situation:

I specifically purchased a hard drive enclosure (IO Magic/plastic 3.5") and a 120 gig drive for my laptop. Why? Because even 120 dollars (remember when they were 260 dollars a few months ago?) is ridiculous for a 60 gigabyte laptop drive (I don't care how small and technologically advanced it is), 120 dollars can buy 200 gigs by now.
My laptop, though owned by myself is right now solely supposed to be used for school, and by that I mean - my univ. is licensed to use Win2k, which I really don't like using. The network is running 2000 Server and the IT people tell me if I put XP on they will for 1. deny the use of it on their servers (meaning they won't put in the user and password to allow my PC to connect to the network's resources like software and folders with essential school projects from professors, etc. and 2. possibly completely revoke my log in priviliges if it is found on the network (meaning deny my computer network access at all through the network name, which all laptops get at the univ.)
I planned to......figured it out yet?).....set up XP Pro on the USB drive and when I feel like it simply switch the USB to master in the Bios. I feel alot more comfy with XP, even though it develops annoyances after about a year of use and requires a format and clean install by 1 year and 6 months of use.

Before you get into boot usb capabilities in Bios' n' all that....I have an IBM Thinkpad A31 unit manufactured in June of 2003. When I go to the boot or startup section of the bios, i can see whatever storage device I have on there. So I can see that my drive is there and everything.

Furthermore, Windows XP setup will get as far as formatting and copying the files over, but after the restart, that's when the issues come about. "Inaccessible Boot Device" I think. From what people have told me, this is because NTLDR or something isn't seeing the usb device or something? I dunno what the guy said.....

I know Norton's ghost has a way to easily load the usb drivers into Dos mode (Like MCDEX? was it called?, that loads CDROMs).

The funny thing is that once the hard drive has the O/S loaded, it seems to work fine. It boots fine into Windows once it's already been installed.
Problem is, I have no way to install it from the laptop directly, and you all know what happens when you change a motherboard with XP on your hard drive.

I need some help....so throw some suggestions or constructive advice at me please. I'm at my wits end here....

 

[MDE]

I highly doubt that you can install any Microsoft OS after DOS to a removable drive of any kind.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The funny thing is that once the hard drive has the O/S loaded, it seems to work fine. It boots fine into Windows once it's already been installed. Problem is, I have no way to install it from the laptop directly, and you all know what happens when you change a motherboard with XP on your hard drive.

If I'm interpreting this correctly then you are saying the 5-10minutes required to call and have XP activated once you've gotten it loaded on another system, then transfered it to be bootable as the primary drive for you notebook, is too much trouble? If that's not what your getting at could you please elucidate on the meaning of the statements quoted above?

 

[GTaudiophile]

How about take the drive out of the case, make it the primary master on your current machine, do a normal install, take the drive out, and put it back in the case?

(No, I didn't read the entire original post.)

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

Quote

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The funny thing is that once the hard drive has the O/S loaded, it seems to work fine. It boots fine into Windows once it's already been installed. Problem is, I have no way to install it from the laptop directly, and you all know what happens when you change a motherboard with XP on your hard drive.
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"If I'm interpreting this correctly then you are saying the 5-10minutes required to call and have XP activated once you've gotten it loaded on another system, then transfered it to be bootable as the primary drive for you notebook, is too much trouble? If that's not what your getting at could you please elucidate on the meaning of the statements quoted above?"




I'm not sure what part you don't understand.

XP doesn't look for devices after activation. It looks for devices during install. Maybe you don't understand what I'm trying to do.

I want to be able to install XP onto the USB drive - OK, we've established that's not going to happen.
I have established that XP can boot from the device if it is setup on another machine, however when you install XP on a machine, for instance - my PC is AMD, VIA Chipset, Bunch of devices - my Laptop is INTEL, Intel Chipset, Bunch of devices; XP will not boot on a system that doesnt have the devices it was installed on, is what I am saying. It stops where it's trying to load mup.sys; even in safe mode.

So it would make no sense to install it from my PC and then try to run it from my laptop, it still will not work.

"then transfered it to be bootable as the primary drive for you notebook, is too much trouble?"

OK, the primary for my lap is the lap hard drive on the inside - I do not want to touch that drive.
In theory, I could ghost w2k system from laptop drive onto another, then format laptop drive and put XP on it that way - then ghost xp system onto the usb drive; then ghost w2k back to the lappy hard drive and have xp on the usb drive.

THIS would most def. be too much trouble. Think of all the steps. I'd need 2 drives or need to create several partitions (which I hate), then just to do the ghosting to and from is just too much mess to go through.
I'd really rather wait a few months till I graduate and then just throw out 2k and put xp on the laptop drive.

Just wanted to know if anyone knew an easier more direct way to do this.

If ghost can load usb drivers, there HAS to be a way.

 

[DaveSimmons]

If ghost can load usb drivers, there HAS to be a way.

Only if you get the source code from Symantec. These USB drivers were written or licensed specifically for Ghost, these aren't some standard USB drivers like the DOS CD drivers you're used to.

I'd suggest using Partition Magic to create 2 C: drives (2 primary partitions, one always hidden from the other) on the internal disk, then Boot Magic to switch between them. Create 2 data partitions on the external drive (D:, E🙂 then have each OS on the laptop install as much as needed of applications to the external drive to leave more space on the internal.

 

[fdisk2003]

Have you considered a simple dual boot with Win2K and XP Pro? Much less work then always having to carry around a USB drive. Use the USB drive for extra data/backups.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I have established that XP can boot from the device if it is setup on another machine, however when you install XP on a machine, for instance - my PC is AMD, VIA Chipset, Bunch of devices - my Laptop is INTEL, Intel Chipset, Bunch of devices; XP will not boot on a system that doesnt have the devices it was installed on, is what I am saying. It stops where it's trying to load mup.sys; even in safe mode.

Well, can't say if it works with the USB drive involved unless you either have SP1 on your XP CD or slipstream a copy with it so you have the USB2.0 drivers included, but when swapping hardware, and in particular mainboards, to avoid a reinstall being necessary you can do a repair install as suggested by a member here txxxx

What ive done in the past is place the Win2k / WinXP CD back in, go through the "install" process, and wait for setup to detect a current installation. Then it gives a choice to repair. Choosing repair just wipes out your <systemroot> folder (usually Windows/Winnt) and recopy's Windows.

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

To answer a few of you in one go - I did consider dual booting, as well as hidden partitions but as I mentioned before - I 100 percent hate partitioning my drives, also by no means do I find it necessary (as in, wanting XP won't make be do it, and under no other circumstances would I want to, than to put XP onto the lappy). If I were to dual boot, I would need to partition the laptop drive into 2 partitions and it's already so tiny as it is *30gigs*, partitioning really wouldn't make sense. To be honest, if laptop drives came in bigger than 80 gigs, like if I could get a 200 gig or even 160 gig, heck even a 120 gig, then I'd have NO problem doing a 20*2k*/80*xp* % partition. That'd be well worth the split.

As for the ghost drivers, I see what you mean. That sucks though - it would be a really useful tool for people who wanted to REALLY have their usb device bootable like a CD. I also have a memory key I wanted to use like a diskette drive, and for the same reason, it won't boot from it. I can see it in the bios and all, but it's not bootable at all.

As for the 'repair' installations...I don't like messing with them either. I prefer my system premium, a nice clean install on a freshly formatted drive is my preferred cocktail.

Thnak ALOT for your help though - you guys kick arse here.

 

[Whitedog]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
I highly doubt that you can install any Microsoft OS after DOS to a removable drive of any kind.

There's is no doubt. It's a simple you No, you can't do that. 😀

Windows setup gets a list of drives from the bios that it see's as being a "fixed disk" for you to choose from during setup. Anything the bios sees as not being a "fixed disk" it doesn't give to the setup program as an option.

USB drives were "Never" meant to be used as such, but just extra storage and backup.

Sorry.

 

[CQuinn]

MonkeyDriveExpress & Whitedog...

http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/usb_troubleshooting_resources.asp

Booting from USB Port
Addonics USB DVD, CD-ROM, CDRW and hard drives have been tested to boot successfully from the latest version of Phoenix BIOS version 4 release 6. Latest Award BIOS shares similar boot code from Phoenix BIOS and should support the boot function for Addonics USB device.

If you have the latest computer hardware, chances are your BIOS already have the latest boot code from Phoenix Technologies. You should be able to boot from the Addonics USB devices.

... On one of my previous jobs we had to set up Windows 98 for install and running from an attached parallel
port hard drive, for systems with no internal drive. I could be done then by booting from a special DOS
floppy that transferred control over to the Windows files after loading the drivers to connect to the drive.

It should be even simpler with a USB connected drive since, despite what you might have heard,
USB booting is supported for many devices. And removeable drives of many kinds have no problem
loading Windows OSes.


AndrewPaulNet -
If you check this link
there are instructions for installing Windows using the Addonics USB driver. I don't know if that
driver will work with the IO Magic enclosure. (sorry, not sure if that helps)

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

"Windows setup gets a list of drives from the bios that it see's as being a "fixed disk" for you to choose from during setup. Anything the bios sees as not being a "fixed disk" it doesn't give to the setup program as an option."

As my post says - setup was easily able to format the drive and copy the files from the CDRom to it....it was right there in the setup as ST120006A USB.
The problem only occurs after the restart, when I guess a file needs to run from the drive but doesn't? I don't know why.

 

[DGath]

As long as you are positive that drive is bootable and your USB port is set on your boot list in your BIOS, I don't see why you couldn't use it for XP and why it shouldn't be easier than this. I don't recall reading in your posts that you are sure you can boot to it, have you tried with just a simple Dos boot? After that, if you are able to get the initial setup files installed and restart, it should work.

I probably wasn't much help, but it seems like it sould be do-able, so keep trying.

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

Thats what burns me the most!

I don't at all understand if setup can detect it as a fixed disk, why it won't go ahead and install.

As I said.....setup runs from the CD as normal and the drive is right there under the list of drives I can install to.

I can format it from there or go ahead and have setup copy the windows - but as soon as it restarts and setup SHOULD continue - I get the inaccessible boot device blue STOP error....ARGH.

I'm gonna read up on the Addonics stuff.

Thanks and keep the responses comin'.

By golly I'm gonna do this!

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

Cquinn.....

*sigh*

I love you.

If ur a girl KISS KISS LICK and all that...

If ur a dude, what the hell...KISS KISS LICK and all that...AND A Beer!

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAAAA!!!!! *SOLVED*

I'd like to Thank You ALL for your contributions.

You guys should be on virtualdr.