Can Run On External Hard Drives (dual Boot Mode W/ XP On An Internal HD)
May 7, 2008
I am curious if Vista can be run from one of those portable external hard drives that I see in Staples, etc. rather than have to install another internal hard drive. I want to dual-boot with XP (already installed on an internal HD) and it would also be great if I can bring that external HD with us when we travel and hook it up to my wife's XP laptop and be able to boot up in Vista too. We need something for testing our software in Vista.
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May 7, 2008
I am curious if Vista can be run from one of those portable external hard drives that I see in Staples, etc... rather than have to install another internal hard drive. I want to dual-boot with XP (already installed on an internal HD) and it would also be great if I can bring that external HD with us when we travel and hook it up to my wife's XP laptop and be able to boot up in Vista too. We need something for testing our software in Vista.
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Feb 19, 2010
i just got my 500gb Seagate drive back after it bricked from the little firmware issue they had. I also just purchased a 1TB WD drive. I don't really trust the Seagate any more and want to use the 1tb drive as a backup. I had backed up everything 6 months ago but it's amazing how much stuff you accumulate in 6 months time.
I am not too knowledgable in hardrives. Not enough to do anything complicated. Right now i am running Vista Ultimate 64 on the Seagate. Could i put another copy of Vista on the 1tb drive and just copy what i want over to it? That way if the Seagate dies again i can go right to the other drive. This will not be an external drive, just another bare drive in the bay. I realize i'm not going about it the best or most efficient way. Some people have explained better ways but most of it was over my head. I just want to be able to unplug the bad drive (if it goes bad) and continue with the other drive. So, would i run into any problems with Vista (not dual boot of course)on both my drives? Does it sound like this approach would work?
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Mar 26, 2008
I have built a new system to game with and have 2 new hard drives, on one I put XP Pro and then on the other I loaded Vista. I have more or less completed all the driver upgrades and windows updates but I keep getting repeated boot failures of Vista. I can always get into Safe mode but in Normal mode the boot fails just after the first spash screen at the point when the screen goes blank to be replaced by the small circular
Vista logo. After 2 or 3 attempts it succeeds to load but then the problem seems to reoccur, particularly when I have been back to XP for a while. I had a similar problem with XP but that seems to have sorted itself out. I have tired looking in the logs for faults and failures but no clues there.
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Mar 23, 2008
I read in the news, this past January, that MSFT was not going to support XP after June 30, 2008. I don't remember the extent of support downside. My concern was that I wanted to be ready and updated. I like having the latest gadgets, especially if helps organize my life. I had the machine to upgrade on, too. I have a HP Media Center PC, Pentium D (dual), and a decent and adequate graphics card. I souped it up to 3.5GB RAM and added a PCI slot for SATA connection. I added the SATA connection because I had just purchased a 750GB external hard drive. I got it for storage and back up. At the time I did not know I could do a dual boot install. I found that out on HP's site.
So I thought that would be the best choice for me, in case Vista did not work out. That made me feel a lot better about the transition. As I started to do the dual set up, I saw my new external drive there with all that room and thought, why not see what happens?????! It???s been a little rocky, I have to say. I like Vista now that the serious stuff is behind me. Microsoft was very helpful. I still lose my connection when I connect through my router.My never ending anxiety is this. Did I do the right thing? Is my external drive sturdy enough to handle the rigors of the Operating System drive? The tech guys said it could not be done. I went ahead and tried and it DID work. I worry that the drive is going to crash. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? The external drive is Western Digital MY Book Home Edition, 750GB, USB, FireWire and SATA connections. The RAID PCI slot I installed is 1.50mbs. I had no PCI express available that would have given it 3mbs. (I think I have the standards right, if not, I bet most who know understand.)The graphics was installed there....
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Mar 16, 2009
hey guys, this may seem like a stupid question but I am travelling and I cant really afford an external hard drive. I need to back up my laptop and reinstall windows... Is it possible to put evrything from C: onto D:, format C: and reinstall without losing anything off D:? I have a Toshiba Sattelite 600 with two 300GB hard disks, running vista home premium 32bit...
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Sep 6, 2009
I have 2 pcs one with xp pro, other is vista business 32bit on laptop. Using a 750gb samsung hd753Lj internal hard drive in a sumvision external enclosure with usb2 and e-sata connection, but i only have usb connection. ALl works fine on xp computer, but when i plug into vista i get the error in the system tray saying "usb device not recognised". In device manager it says "unknown device." have tried all 4 usb ports on laptop, have tried using it via mains powered usb hub and still no joy.
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Jun 19, 2008
There are many articles on how to dual boot Vista and XP, but I want to dual boot Vista and Vista, with an existing installation, on 2 Hard Drives. Currently I switch these in the BIOS, but I'd much rather chose at a later stage, can this be done? Why? Because I keep one of the drives for random software that I rarely use.
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Mar 23, 2008
is it unheard of to dual-boot Vista x64 on a dual-core computer with x32 on an external drive (same software package)?
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Dec 23, 2008
I have a program on an external USB hard drive. I want to run the program from that HD. It doesn't run properly because it needs to write files to it's folder, and it doesn't have permission to. If I turn User Account Control off, then everything works just fine, however I don't want to turn it off. Is there anything else I can do to get the program to work properly with UAC turned on? Should the program be writing files to a specific folder? I tried setting the permissions of the folder to 'full control', but all that seems to do is set the permissions on each individual file that currently exists in the folder.
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Sep 15, 2007
Windows Vista operates external hard drives that are connected with USB differently than internal drives. Write caching is disabled so that you can safely remove the drive at almost any time. This is a great feature for USB thumb drives that are frequently inserted and removed from your computer. But if you have a large hard drive that is in an external enclosure that you never disconnect from your computer, write caching is also disabled which can decrease performance.
This tweak is going to show you how to increase the performance of your external hard drives by turning write caching back on as well as activating advanced performance. Let’s get started: ...
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May 9, 2008
I have 2 HD's. One has XP Pro, the other Vista Home Premium. I want to dual boot. I got Acronis and installed it's OS Selector. It only seems to recognize the OS on the first drive. I tried making another partition on the XP drive (since that is the one I am not wanted to reformat at the moment). I have enough space showing, 63GB but I could only get it to make a small 7GB partition
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Nov 27, 2009
I recently received a multi port USB hub and plugged it into my laptop. It seemed like a good idea as I only had 2 USB ports on my computer. This gave me 4 where before I only had 1 which made a total of 5. I plugged a new external DVD burning drive into one of the multi ports ports. The drive used 2 ports, 1 for drive and 1 for drives power. I also plugged 2 external hard drives into the other 2 ports. The burning drive would not work and 1 of the external hard drives was not detected in computer.
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Mar 23, 2008
I have been loking but not finding instructions to install 32 and 64 bit Vista ( yes I have 2 seperate licensce -am not trying to cheat Microsoft). I had bought & installed 64 bit vista ultimate-however many devices and programs not compatible. So I bought the 32 bit version as well (i have an individual licensce for each version). SO in stalled the 32 bit version (wiped out the 64 as it interfered with the install). After a week of being on 32 bit, I find that I would also like to install the 64 bit version on a hard drive other thatn the 32 bit install.
I have scoured the Inet and MS sites but only see references to XP and Vista etc. Can anyone really help or point me to install instructions that will guide me on how to now install 64 bit vista so I can enjoy dual booting into either at BOOT? Please don't flame me for not being a genius...... but evrything I find is vague or does not adequately address the question.
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Mar 26, 2008
I have been loking but not finding instructions to install 32 and 64 bit Vista ( yes I have 2 seperate licensce -am not trying to cheat Microsoft). I had bought & installed 64 bit vista ultimate-however many devices and programs not compatible. So I bought the 32 bit version as well ( i have an individual licensce for each version). SO in stalled the 32 bit version (wiped out the 64 as it interfered with the install). After a week of being on 32 bit, I find that I would also like to install the 64 bit version on a hard drive other thatn the 32 bit install. I have scoured the Inet and MS sites but only see references to XP and Vista etc. how to now install 64 bit vista so I can enjoy dual booting into either at BOOT?
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Feb 11, 2009
I have an Existing Vista install on HD1 and want to install Windows 7 on HD2.Was going to make HD2 the Primary Drive. Is there a way I can alternately boot to the HD1 Drive if I need to?
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Aug 26, 2008
I am planning on putting ubuntu on an external hard drive. If I install Ubuntu on it, can I boot to it? I don't want to change any settings in bios, I just want to boot to ubuntu occasionally.
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May 18, 2008
Here is my situation: I have XP installed on a SATA drive in a computer I just put together (AMD x2 5600+, ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe, 2Gig Ram) and I want to install another SATA drive with Vista Ultimate 64 bit and I want the ability to dual-boot like some people do when they have 2 operating systems on the same drive but in different partitions. I originally install Vista Ultimate 64 bit as the O/S but it was incompatible with many of the programs I use so I installed XP Pro.Otherwise I liked Vista.
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May 4, 2009
I have a Vista Ultimate 64 bit system using an ASUS striker II formula MB, Intel core 2 quad 2.66 mh CPU, 8 GB RAM. It was setup with 2 320 GB Seagate drives and a 500 GB Seagate drive in a RAID. A week and a half ago when shutting down the system, I got the install updates message. I clicked OK. Upon return, I found the system still running showing the BIOS screen. After reboot, I had a no operating system error. Using the Vista DVD to attempt repair, yielded a corrupt partition error. I attempted to reinstall Vista on one 320 GB drive. This gave a disk boot failure. After trying this and that, I ran chkdsk during boot which fixed the error. I want to recover my data. To facilitate recovery, I purchased 2 1.5 GB Seagate drives. I have attempted to format the drives using computer management and safe mode with command prompt. The drives will get to 73% format but no farther.
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Jun 25, 2009
I have a Dell Inspiron 530 running Vista Home Premium x64 SP2.It has an internal card reader,a TEAC CA-200,that connects internally to the front USB connector on the motherboard.When the reader works,it shows up at four drive letters in Windows Explorer. The problem is that it doesn't work.When I first boot the PC the drives show up. After plugging in and ejecting a memory card a few times,all the drive letters go away and when I try plugging in a memory card it occasionally gives me a USB Error message that talks about a missing driver.It lists six USB ports with one listed as unknown - driver missing.If I open the case and unplug and re-plug the reader cable, the drives are all found again.Then in short order they'll disappear again.I've worked with Dell tech support and they've replaced the reader and its cable with no improvement.I've updated the chipset drivers with no improvement.Dell's last suggestion was to reinstall Windows from scratch. Doing a Google search for "dell card reader not recognized"finds a LOT of reports of this problem and I've already tried the suggested fixes. Unless you have the solution,I can see only two options going forward.Pretend the reader isn't there and get an external card reader,or get an internal card reader that uses a standard USB cable to plug into an available port on an added USB card.
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May 30, 2009
Is there any speed difference or anything that i can get with a external (PCI) ethernet card then a internal ethernet? Im asking about this because im thinking of getting a Killer Nic M1 but not entirely sure if i should get it or not.
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Mar 23, 2008
Basically, I have a custom built pc back in the UK which I will be taking apart soon, as Im selling up everything I have back in the UK. (Moved to Finland last year from UK). I want to keep my internal 300GB HDD from my custom built PC, and know I can do this, and also know what case I'm going for too, although it will be powered independently, with its own psu rather than USB powered. Now my question is to you kind people, is, what exactly do I have to do before I can dismantle my custom built PC, and start using the 300GB HDD as an external HDD with my laptop.?
Im sure its not as simple as it sounds.? Just unplug, and fit to external case/housing(which comes with leads etc), and then use with laptop.? Do I need to install anything on this drive so that everything stored on it can be accessible? Also, not sure whats installed on there all together right now, although theres loads of photos, and files I need for work etc. My concerns are that some, if not all of the files used from the OS from my custom built pc are in there, which I do not need.
I will of course power up the pc to double check all files etc prior to dismantling, I just need some advice on what is the right way in going about this? The last thing I want to do is remove the 300GB HDD, then then bring it to Finland, and not being able to access anything due to some problems which could of been prevented back in the UK. The OS on my PC is XP Professional. The OS on my laptop is Vista Business.
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Jul 22, 2008
I am running Vista Ultimate on my laptop which has a 50gb internal harddrive. I have less than 500 mb of memory left and was wondering could I move the entire content of my C: drive ( including the vista ultimate ) to an external harddrive, then format my C: drive and boot up from my external harddrive? Also if this is possible could I dual boot with Mac OS X Leapord? If this is possible can you please tell me how.
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Feb 24, 2009
I have a Dell computer, had it about three weeks. I have two hard drives in a serial ATA Raid 0 stripe 500GB each. They are controlled by Intel matrix storage manager software. I want to have the two hard drives separate, like drive C and Drive D In the Bios I have two choices ATA or Raid, I have tried both ways to have them separate, however still can't. I have to say that I found this forum by chance, by goodness I am glad I did with drivers for my scanner and printer.
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Jun 29, 2008
On Windows XP I used WinRAR for my backups because the OS lacked a decent backup system. To my surprise with Vista I still use WinRAR for my backups as that OS doesn't seem to have a decent backup system either.
I want to backup files from internal drive C to a physically separate internal drive D. Drive D won't show up. What comes closest seems to be ''The location is either the system disk (the disk that Windows is installed on?also called the C drive) or the boot disk (the disk that Windows uses to start your computer?also called the startup disk)as Windows XP is installed on drive D.
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Jul 4, 2008
The manufacturer of my PC provided me with a New Imaged Hard drive. My old drive was working fine except it had some pre-installed software on it that could not be removed and could cause conflicts. The manufactiurer wants the old Hard drive returned. The old drive has some senitive personal information on it so I am reluctant just to pack it up and return it.
I have done some research about how to wipe off all information on a Hard drive before donating a PC, etc......but all I have read is very complicated and I am not comfortable in proceedding following any of the processes. Keeping in mind, I am not erasing the Hard drive with my PC's OS on it, (although the Old drive still has an OS on it). I can connect the OLD drive as a 2nd Internal drive....and than proceed to Wipe it Clean before returning it.
Surely there must be an easy, simple process for someone with limited computer knowledge to wipe a 2nd Internal Hard drive clean of all data so that no one could access any information off that drive....
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Feb 6, 2009
I've added and extra hard drive because I'm always low on disk space but I can't get the PC to recognise the new drive. SATA 2 and 3 are greyed out and I don't know how to change it.
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Apr 13, 2009
I just installed a new internal hard drive (SATA). I want to use this drive only for storage (not boot-up).
When I try to access it via "My Computer" the drive is not shown. When I try to find it in "Device Manager" it is not shown. When I try to set it up in the BIOS, that field is "read only"... I cannot highlight it to change it. I have made sure all cables are secure. I even swapped the power source of my existing hard drive with the new hard drive to ensure power is OK. How do I set up this hard drive? My PC is a Dell Inspiron 531S, running Windows Vista Home Edition 32bit.
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May 9, 2009
Had vista & windows 7 dual booting & then i installed xp pro & lost my dual boot. How can i get it back?
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May 27, 2008
Is it possible to copy my entire hard drive onto an external hard drive. Vista Premium, all the data, etc. and what would be a good software to accomplish this?
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Sep 27, 2008
I have an external hard drive, I reformated it so I could use Vista's backup.Now it seems that when my brother inlaw tries to put some music files(Itunes) that the hard disc is unavailable to his computer. At this stage it seems that Vista has conned me into destroying a perfectly good WD harddrive!I have created a second partion on the hard drive and I am reformatting that, as I write this, but the only formatting option seems to be this NTFS, and that is what I had already formatted the ExtHD to so I think this formatting will be to no avail!From what I can figure I need to format into FAT but I tried a quick format an ex-fat option was there, but the problem was the same. I am becoming more frustrated with Vista, seems I just keep running into things that should be simple and aren't!
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