Installing an Operating System on an External Drive

C

chrstrbrts

Member
Hi,

I have installed operating systems on interior hard drives from external drives, specifically from bootable USBs.

But, how do I install an operating system on an external drive?

Specifically, I would like to install Windows 7 from my bootable USB to another USB.

Is this possible?

Thanks.
 
Transfer rate over USB is too slow to support installing on an external drive.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
Transfer rate over USB is too slow to support installing on an external drive.
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I wouldn't say it's too slow, yes it's slower but you can still get around 40-60MB/s over USB 2.0. I installed OS X 10.8 on a USB 2.0 external drive and boot from it for troubleshooting, and it boots up approximately just as fast as the internal 5400RPM SATA drive.

That's OS X though, which has no problem booting on different devices as there is no activation, and the hardware is all relatively the same. With Windows, if you tried to boot from an external drive on a completely different machine, most likely it wouldn't boot at all, and if it did you'd have activation and driver issues.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
With Windows, if you tried to boot from an external drive on a completely different machine, most likely it wouldn't boot at all, and if it did you'd have activation and driver issues.
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So you're saying that even if I could install Windows onto an external USB drive, I wouldn't be able to boot from that drive?

Why not? This isn't true of every operating system.

Why can I boot some operating systems like Linux of Tails from an external drive but not Windows?

Thanks.
 
You can install to an external, but you can't transfer the external to a different computer? Why are you wanting to install to an external?
 
chrstrbrts said:
So you're saying that even if I could install Windows onto an external USB drive, I wouldn't be able to boot from that drive?

Why not? This isn't true of every operating system.

Why can I boot some operating systems like Linux of Tails from an external drive but not Windows?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
No, I'm saying if you tried to use it in a different computer you most likely will have issues from running it on different hardware.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
No, I'm saying if you tried to use it in a different computer you most likely will have issues from running it on different hardware.
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Really? Why? How would the operating system and/or USB drive know that I'm trying to boot the operating system on a different machine than the one I used to install the operating system on the USB?

Why does this matter? Is there some way to uniquely identify a machine?

Thanks.
 
Because on every windows install,no matter if its a internal hard drive or external hard drive, windows is setup for the hardware that it detects during the install and the drivers you install after the fact. If you were to attach that drive to another computer, then it wouldn't boot up because of the different hardware.
 
chrstrbrts said:
Really? Why? How would the operating system and/or USB drive know that I'm trying to boot the operating system on a different machine than the one I used to install the operating system on the USB?

Why does this matter? Is there some way to uniquely identify a machine?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
For one, drivers. Drivers are specific to the hardware. If you install an OS with drivers for nVidia graphics, Intel chipset, etc., and try to use it in an AMD system, you are going to have major issues.

Second, activation. If Windows detects multiple hardware changes, it will require you to reactivate, and you can only activate so any times before having to call Microsoft.
 
johnb35 said:
Because on every windows install,no matter if its a internal hard drive or external hard drive, windows is setup for the hardware that it detects during the install and the drivers you install after the fact. If you were to attach that drive to another computer, then it wouldn't boot up because of the different hardware.
Click to expand...

WRXGuy1 said:
For one, drivers. Drivers are specific to the hardware. If you install an OS with drivers for nVidia graphics, Intel chipset, etc., and try to use it in an AMD system, you are going to have major issues.

Second, activation. If Windows detects multiple hardware changes, it will require you to reactivate, and you can only activate so any times before having to call Microsoft.
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Is this behavior particular to Windows? Why don't Tails or Linux behave this way?

Or do they? I'm inexperienced. Do all operating systems exhibit this sort of limitation?

I swear I've seen people pop Linux CDs into ODDs on a variety of computers with no problems.
 
Because those are live cd's. Boots directly into a Linux environment in case you can't boot into windows.
 
chrstrbrts said:
Is this behavior particular to Windows? Why don't Tails or Linux behave this way?

Or do they? I'm inexperienced. Do all operating systems exhibit this sort of limitation?

I swear I've seen people pop Linux CDs into ODDs on a variety of computers with no problems.
Click to expand...
Windows is the only one that's picky about activation. With Mac OS X, they control their hardware and across platforms they are all very identical. You wouldn't be able to boot from an external OS X drive created on an Intel machine on a PowerPC machine however.

Live CD's are a different beast, they have the necessary drivers included on the disk.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
Live CD's are a different beast, they have the necessary drivers included on the disk.
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How is that possible? Don't the drivers need to interact with both the OS and the hardware? How can you write drivers that work with every possible hardware set?

So you're saying that I can take a Live CD, pop it into an IBM platform machine, boot the operating system just fine, take it out, pop it into an Apple machine (totally different architecture), and it'll boot just fine again?

How is that possible?
 
chrstrbrts said:
How is that possible? Don't the drivers need to interact with both the OS and the hardware? How can you write drivers that work with every possible hardware set?

So you're saying that I can take a Live CD, pop it into an IBM platform machine, boot the operating system just fine, take it out, pop it into an Apple machine (totally different architecture), and it'll boot just fine again?

How is that possible?
Click to expand...

Because when the live cd boots, it detects the hardware installed and runs the necessary drivers.

When you install Windows, it only has basic drivers for some hardware, then you install the rest. If you install to an external HDD and install drivers, it won't be able to start on another machine because the hardware is different.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
Because when the live cd boots, it detects the hardware installed and runs the necessary drivers.
Click to expand...

But this is only possible if you have, on the live cd, every possible driver for every possible system. Is this the case?

voyagerfan99 said:
If you install to an external HDD and install drivers, it won't be able to start on another machine because the hardware is different.
Click to expand...

OK. You mean a different type of machine, correct?

For example, I install Windows onto a USB and on that USB load the drivers for my Toshiba model ABC. It works fine.

I unplug it and plug it into your Toshiba model ABC that you did not modify in any way (yours and mine are factory identical) and it boots no problem.

But, then I try plugging it into a Dell model XYZ, and it won't boot. Right?

So the operating system checks for hardware sets, not MAC addresses, correct?

It can't differentiate between your and my identical TOSHIBA model ABC computers even though ours have different MAC addresses. Yes?
 
The mac address has nothing to do with an operating system install. The mac address belongs to the internet connection hardware. If the 2 machines are exactly the same yes, windows will boot from an external drive. But if they are different in the slightest little way especially chipset then it won't boot. Why is is this so hard for you to understand?
 
johnb35 said:
The mac address has nothing to do with an operating system install. The mac address belongs to the internet connection hardware. If the 2 machines are exactly the same yes, windows will boot from an external drive. But if they are different in the slightest little way especially chipset then it won't boot. Why is is this so hard for you to understand?
Click to expand...

I understand this perfectly. My problem lays with misunderstanding what a MAC address is.

I thought that a MAC address was like a VIN for a computer, that is a completely unique identification number that is specific to your machine.

Also, I assumed that proprietary software like Windows would have some kind of check against to many "bootings" onto different machines.

I assumed that a manufacturer like Microsoft would deem such a thing as a type of theft; almost as though you were stealing the software by installing it once onto a USB and booting it on a great many different (even if identical with respect to hardware) computers thereafter.

In addition, keep in mind that I know nothing of computers. I'm learning quite a bit by asking questions even if they're silly ones.
 
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