Installing XP to a USB Drive...

goosy22

goosy22

New Member
i wanted to do it so i can take it to houses to test computers without worrying about if their OS is corrupt or if they even have one... and i thought USB would be a nice small alternative to carrying Hard Drives around...

but i'm having problems installing it... it says during install that if you want to choose device/partition and i always check it, but i never get the chance to choose, it always installs it to the Hard Drive... any ideas how to fix this? or should i try and ghost my HDD to the USB Drive?
 
Im not sure how to fix your problem, but surely, installing XP to a USB drive isn't going to work as the setup installation will configure itself to your system.

So, when you go to try and load it on any other system, the boot agent will automatically start loading files for the system it was first installed on.

I'd be surprised if you even got anywhere near the Welcome screen!
 
Dngrsone said:
I find it much easier to use DSL on a stick.
Click to expand...

[sarcasm]hmm... well good for you [/sarcasm]:P... actually i'll probably use that anyways, i guess i could install ubuntu on the stick even... thanks for the link, that looks a lot easier than trying to install windows on a stick...
 
what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? There are many Knoppix based linux distros (damn small linux is only one of them) out there that have lots of cool tools and utilities.

Maybe what you want is a Windows XP PE (preinstall enviroment) which basically is a live version of windows similiar to the live versions of Linux listed.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

You can load tons of 32bit windows applications and use them on a live cd. Then use a thumb drive to carry around the latest definitions if you are going to be running anti-spwyare/malware/virus/etc applications.

Is it just basic diagnostics, or do you want network diagnostics as well?
 
Oh yes, installing XP on an external device can be done. Some newer motherboards have an option in the BIOS where you can boot from USB and use your ext. HDD as your master and the original HDD in the computer as a slave.
 
tlarkin said:
what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? There are many Knoppix based linux distros (damn small linux is only one of them) out there that have lots of cool tools and utilities.

Maybe what you want is a Windows XP PE (preinstall enviroment) which basically is a live version of windows similiar to the live versions of Linux listed.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

You can load tons of 32bit windows applications and use them on a live cd. Then use a thumb drive to carry around the latest definitions if you are going to be running anti-spwyare/malware/virus/etc applications.

Is it just basic diagnostics, or do you want network diagnostics as well?
Click to expand...

here's the breakdown of my scenario: lately i've been troubleshooting/repairing/buying computers that are missing either operating software or bootable devices, and i'm tired of carrying around hard drives in my pocket to and from the sites... i just want to find an OS that's installable on a USB drive to be bootable (i thought windows was but it's a pain in the ass to get it to work, look here) so i don't have to carry around HDD's anymore...

Calibretto said:
Oh yes, installing XP on an external device can be done. Some newer motherboards have an option in the BIOS where you can boot from USB and use your ext. HDD as your master and the original HDD in the computer as a slave.
Click to expand...

yes i know it can be done... but when i try to install it, the option to choose device and partition always seems to be skipped...
 
Calibretto said:
Oh yes, installing XP on an external device can be done. Some newer motherboards have an option in the BIOS where you can boot from USB and use your ext. HDD as your master and the original HDD in the computer as a slave.
Click to expand...

Only problem with that is that if the computer he brings his drive out to does not support USB booting, then its pretty much useless. Every Computer though supports booting off of CD/DVDs
 
tlarkin said:
Only problem with that is that if the computer he brings his drive out to does not support USB booting, then its pretty much useless. Every Computer though supports booting off of CD/DVDs
Click to expand...

i know that... but i haven't ran into one yet that doesn't support it... and yes i carry around my OS CD's anyways, but some computers that i look at, like potential buys, have burned up optical drives that don't work.. i just thought it would be less of a hassle to carry a USB drive... especially if it's a laptop and you don't have any spare optical drives that fit into a laptop...
 
I think you would want to build your own PE disk for windows xp so you can run windows utilities on those machines you are troubleshooting.

Do you troubleshoot any other platform? Linux, OS X, networking issues?

The PE is something that will take some time to configure but once you do, you can do a lot of cool things with it.
 
tlarkin said:
I think you would want to build your own PE disk for windows xp so you can run windows utilities on those machines you are troubleshooting.

Do you troubleshoot any other platform? Linux, OS X, networking issues?

The PE is something that will take some time to configure but once you do, you can do a lot of cool things with it.
Click to expand...

as of yet, no... but i would guess that later on i might... but couldn't i partition the USB Drive and pull of dual booting if i loaded like Grub onto it?
 
what USB drive are we talking about? If it is a small drive it is pointless to put any OS that uses a journaling file system on something small. Its not a thumb drive is it?

To answer your question, yes you can load grub on the boot sector of the drive, and during the boot strap process once it hits boot off other (or USB depending on bios) grub will load and ask which OS you want to load. You can build your own custom GRUB loaders if you download the source.

Also, by diagnostics do you mean like hardware tests, scan for viruses and stuff like that? Identify the hardware would be good too if you are considering to buy these machines.
 
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