Vista external USB boot | The Coffeehouse

Refrax

has anyone gotten Vista to boot from and external USB hard drive? i have not looked to deep into why it dosn't work for me but if other people have gotten it to work then i can put more time into it.

Manip

Update your bios drivers. If your board is new enough it will support boot via USB.

Or otherwise your need to create a boot-floppy set and do so that way. But it requires a fair few disks to do.

Refrax

Manip wrote:

Update your bios drivers. If your board is new enough it will support boot via USB.

Or otherwise your need to create a boot-floppy set and do so that way. But it requires a fair few disks to do.

the bios works find. i am asking if anyone got vista to boot to a USB hard drive. i don't like to use virtual PCs so i load up the OS on the USB drive and boot to it.

Jason Cox
Longtime C9 Lurker

Vista's detects my USB HDD without a hitch when booting off the DVD, however after the first reboot when setup tries to load from the HD I get a BSOD. I cant remember the error but I think it had to do with Vista not recognizes a SCSI or RAID adapter. I last tried it with 5270, I havent yet to try installing 5308 to a USB HDD.

Refrax

Jason Cox wrote:
Vista's detects my USB HDD without a hitch when booting off the DVD, however after the first reboot when setup tries to load from the HD I get a BSOD. I cant remember the error but I think it had to do with Vista not recognizes a SCSI or RAID adapter. I last tried it with 5270, I havent yet to try installing 5308 to a USB HDD.

same problem i have. maybe it will be corrected in new builds after 5308

eddwo
Wheres my head at?

Its not supposed to work. Vista will only support a non-removeable drive for the system partition.

If you managed to install onto a removeable disk it would probably be considered a bug in the installer that allowed the install to go ahead.

nswan

I wish i had read this earlier today before going out and buying a usb hard drive for exactly this purpose! [C]

dentaku

nswan wrote:
I wish i had read this earlier today before going out and buying a usb hard drive for exactly this purpose!

Well, at least you now have a good external drive you can use as a backup device. Anyone who has any data they think is important should have one anyway.

My favorite way of installing 2 OSes is to just hook up a second harddrive as slave and install the OS on it while the primary master is disconnected. With my Asus P4C800-E motherboard it lets me press F8 at startup which gives me a boot menu screen.
I just choose what drive I want to boot from WITHOUT having to mess with boot loaders and messing up master boot records Wink

nswan

I'm considering buying and downloading Partion Magic and just using my main hard drive, or breaking open the external drive and seeing if i can install the hard drive as a normal internal one!

Jason Cox
Longtime C9 Lurker

Technicaly though it's possible, you just have to give Vista the right drivers, it'd be just like booting off a SCSI or RAID card from what I've read, both of which will give you a BSOD if you dont have the right drivers.

dentaku

nswan wrote:
I'm considering buying and downloading Partion Magic and just using my main hard drive, or breaking open the external drive and seeing if i can install the hard drive as a normal internal one!

If it's a full sized model it should just have a regular harddrive inside it. There's no reason why you couldn't just remove it from the case and stick it on a free IDE connector inside your computer.

If your motherboard has that handy boot menu like mine it'll be even easier. I've never been daring enough to mess with Partition Magic, just using 2 separate drives and disconnecting one while I install the OS is the absolute safest way to go.

androidi

I tried the same method that works for XP to boot Vista from USB but didn't get it to work. Someone might have got it to work though, recommend to look into the first link here.

TRScheel

Couldnt you install onto a physical, internal drive... then remove the drive and put it into an external and boot from that? (The final step putting back the original internal?)

This is all considering you have an external that accepts an internal drive(I currently do have one that uses a laptop HDD and I COULD swap them back and forth on my laptop, havent tried this though).

MvTCracker

dentaku wrote:

nswan wrote: I'm considering buying and downloading Partion Magic and just using my main hard drive, or breaking open the external drive and seeing if i can install the hard drive as a normal internal one!

If it's a full sized model it should just have a regular harddrive inside it. There's no reason why you couldn't just remove it from the case and stick it on a free IDE connector inside your computer.

If your motherboard has that handy boot menu like mine it'll be even easier. I've never been daring enough to mess with Partition Magic, just using 2 separate drives and disconnecting one while I install the OS is the absolute safest way to go.

The point of getting an external hard drive (usb) is to not install the hard drive inside

I would also like to be able to install vista on an external usb drive so I could show people the beta on there computers without installing vista

Jason Cox
Longtime C9 Lurker

I dont have a link, but someone has found out how to install XP on an USB drive (it required modifying some stuff on the install CD, dont know if it's legal though), maybe their work can help you install Vista on a USB drive.

I know awhile back someone in MS blogged about why XP wouldnt install on a USB drive, it was a good read, if anyone knows the article or has a link, can you post it here?

spoofnozzle
Bite my shiney metal a$$!

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/index.html

mattcampbell

Thanks Spoofnoozle for the link.
I thought you could only boot it from a usb external hard drive.
Thanks

MvTCracker

spoofnozzle wrote:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/index.html

http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=80811

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/04/15/113811.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2576431

www.wdc.com/en/library/usb/2079-001050.pdf

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Q_20983648.html

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

http://www.bootdisk.com/usb.htm

MvTCracker

http://www.digg.com/software/How_To_Quicklaunch_your_Portable_Apps_USB_workspace

MvTCracker

did anyone get this to work? Tongue Out

cropje_jnr

I was able to successfully install Vista RC1 to an external USB HDD simply by taking the drive from its external case and connecting it to a spare IDE slot in my PC tower. The installation was fine, leading one to believe that my BIOS configuration was luckily correct before I even started the whole adventure.

However, several issues remain- the most irksome of which is that my Vista installation freezes up momentarily, and sometimes locks up altogether, when I connect certain USB devices (HP all-in-one printer, iPod, etc.)

Which (if any) of all these methods of booting from USB storage devices can help me overcome the lock-ups when working off my ex-USB-cum-IDE internal hard disk Vista installation? Would it be easier to simply purchase a new dedicated internal hard drive and to transfer my RC1 installation across?

Any feedback would be immensely appreciated. Cool

corsair8575

Found this post show up on google search so posting in here on a HOWTO for vista full release install on usb drive

I hope this method is easy to do and will help anyone looking for
the vista usb solution. This avoids any ghosting or copying over
of OS install to diff drives. Avoids cross mounting registry hives.

Drawback: Needs another drive plugged in sata or ide channel or BSOD after install procedure (used or unused)
Meaning this only boots off usb vista, if there is another hard drive present in the system. Has
something to do with vista verification of disk drives. The ide or sata drive doesnt need to boot, it just
needs to be present. (seen this with some hardware, others boot fine without any other attached drives)
If usb boot is slow its not the install but the hardware bios support on the system.

I read around and compiled my own way of doing so. Credit to those listed
in the urls. (only after reading their materials I was able to understand all this)

http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176 (thx emanuel)

http://www.nedprod.com/Niall_stuff/BootWinUSB/ (thx nialls)

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...181&st=1720 (thx dietmar)

Vista wont start installation on a USB interface no matter what. It is embedded in its OS which
I wasnt able to track down.
So I decided to use VMWARE 6 (may work with older vmware not sure).
You can download vmware and an eval license for 30 days can be emailed to you.
You can also try the free server version of vmware assuming it will work the same.
download vmware install it. (vmware is easy to use)

Create a new vmware for windows, pick custom pick lsi logic as scsi card (vista has support for this card)
use cdrom or iso as you wish for the vista install CD.
have your usb drive u want to install on, plugged in. Vmware will see this device as physical drive 1 (0 being your OS)
use physical disk(advanced) of your usb drive. Make sure you pick the
correct physical drive (drive 1 usually) or else you might wipe the current OS drive.
Use entire disk.
Click advanced on disk in virtual machine settings. Click on independent
and persistent changes for the disk.

Now, please remove all assigned letters in disk management for the USB drive
(If you dont u can corrupt an install that way).
Also make sure you format the drive during vista install inside vmware. If it is already formatted
you still need to format during vista install (or else u might get corrupt boot as crcdisk error)
Vmware will show that drive as scsi disk under lsi logic controller, this is fine as vista will install on a scsi disk.

Boot and go through the vista install procedure in vmware.
Let vista boot to the desktop the first time in the vmware
inside vmware vista do start-> run regedit (in the search box unlike XP)
goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\
Now edit tags
start = 0
Group = boot bus extender

on all these servies
usbccgp
usbehci
usbhub
usbstor
usbuhci

If there are no "group" string values add them in for those services

exit regedit
goto \windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository\usbstor.inf_bb2778a0
copy usbstor.sys into \windows\system32\drivers (ugh not sure why MS doesnt have it in here)
goto \windows\inf
take control and inherit perms for administrator of the inf folder, then
edit usbstor.inf,usbport.inf,usb.inf to have inside section
[*.AddService]
StartType = 0
LoadOrderGroup = boot bus extender

(This is because when you boot into regular desktop out of vmware it will find new usb interface
and mess up the startup type.)

shutdown vista

close vmware

Now reboot your machine and select USB boot drive from bios boot. Machine should now boot
to vista desktop.

* Be careful about it finding new usb devices and to add drivers. Make sure the
start type and groups dont change on the usb services (verify in regedit).
It will find your current hardware's usb device and install drivers for it.
problem is it can overwrite the original usb*.inf file and add new params into it.
double check this or when you reboot again boot will fail.
If you do windows update, fix the registry or it will fail. Update adds new files like the original.
After the drivers get installed for the first time it is safe to assume you wont
have to deal with it being reinstalled unless you goto another machine.
Of course you can always go back to the vmware instance and fix it there.

Hope its simple and straight forward. You can probably install xp and 200(0,3) this way too. (may need
lsi logic drivers to find boot disk though, vista,win2k3 has it natively)
EDIT: xp and windows 200(0,3) exhibit the same behavior of BSOD during boot. Even after
copying usbstor.sys and other files from driver cache cabs. So xp and win2k3 dont work currently.
Still maybe salvageable with other tweaks out there.

The is another way to get WAIK tools for vista and regedit the above changes directly in the boot(1,2).wim
and install(1,2,3,4,5,6).wim but I will leave that out to the daring. Vista installer still wont
do direct usb install though even with those usb service changes in the image.

If your drive doesnt show up under vmware for use then its targetting as removeable device.
you can install the xpfildrvr driver (the hitachi driver) to remedy that. (mostly for usb flash drives)
Careful about USB stick since it needs additional drivers to stop those write cycles in windows.
But atleast the install should be straight forward. No need for extra copying or dealing with
non working boot sectors as the install is directly on the destination.

Lazy mans quick install...
Here is a working INF file which you can copy (by assigning deassigning drive letters to your usb drive)
put it in c:\ of your windows install, inside vmware right click install the inf file. It wont change the usb
inf files for you but it will add the reg and copy usbstor.sys for you. For those who dont want to regedit and such...

[version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"
SetupClass=BASE

[DefaultInstall]
AddReg = usbservices.Addreg
CopyFiles = usbstordr

[SourceDisksNames]
1 = yourcdrive,,,\windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository\usbstor.inf_bb2778a0

[SourceDisksFiles]
usbstor.sys = 1,,

[DestinationDirs]
DefaultDestDir = 12 ; DIRID_DRIVERS

[usbstordr]
usbstor.sys

[usbservices.Addreg]

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbccgp","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB parent Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbccgp","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbccgp","Group",0x00000000,"boot bus extender"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbccgp","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbccgp.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbccgp","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbccgp","Type",0x00010001,1

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbstor","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB Mass Storage Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbstor","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbstor","Group",0x00000000,"boot bus extender"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbstor","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbstor.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbstor","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbstor","Type",0x00010001,1

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller Miniport Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","Group",0x00000000,"boot bus extender"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbehci.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbehci","Type",0x00010001,1

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","DisplayName",0x00000000,"USB2 Enabled Hub"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","Group",0x00000000,"boot bus extender"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbhub.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbhub","Type",0x00010001,1

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","DisplayName",0x00000000,"Microsoft USB Universal Host Controller Miniport Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","Group",0x00000000,"boot bus extender"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbuhci.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbuhci","Type",0x00010001,1

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","DisplayName",0x00000000,"Microsoft USB Open Host Controller Miniport Driver"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","ErrorControl",0x00010001,1
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","Group",0x00000000,"boot bus extender"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","ImagePath",0x00020000,"system32\DRIVERS\usbohci.sys"
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","Start",0x00010001,0
HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usbohci","Type",0x00010001,1

Have fun.
-Kal P

Talon

Corsair's approach does work, but here is a word of caution.

As Corsair saysm when you apply a service pack or install a new device which changes the USB drivers you need to re-apply these changes.

So I thought I would be clever and I made a backup of the three *.inf files. I then created a small batch file to:

1. Apply the registry changes mentioned
2. Overwrite the existing *.inf files with my modified versions.

This worked a few times. However I found to my cost that these *.inf files may have other important changes in them. When one (or more) such changes were overwrote by my batch file, a subsequent reboot corrupted my hard disk partition!

At first I thought I had a faulty disk, but after a second attempt and a failure at the same point I am confident that this is what was happening.

I am trying to currently repair my second build. Since USB is screwed up I hve also lost my mouse Perplexed

, so this is not so easy.

Mr.BrYcE

Hi guys,

what is the boot time if you install vista on usb flash drive using this method ?

can we benefit from the flash drive low latency ?

if this really works i plan to buy a 32Gb flash drive, their not cheap so i m craving for some feedback on this lol

paul keijzers

In reply to corsair8575

#Nov 18th, 2007 @ 2:44 PM

hi crosair,

i installed vmware but when i try to select disk1 i get the following error

Failed to load partitions for device \\.\PhysicalDrive1: The partition table is invalid

does one of you guys know a solution for this problem?