Installing and Boot Windows xp from external hard drive USB eSATA ?

Ok I did a little search on this topic and the most up to date thread I could find is this one:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=139188
And since that thread seem almost inactive, I thought it might be good to start a new one.
If anyone knows of a better place to post this,please let me know.

Now this is what I want:
Simple installation of windows XP from and external HDD. And run boot/run off of it.

I have successfully booted Vista from my eSATA 2.5" HDD. This was simple as Vista had suport for SATA, and the SATA doesn't suffer the power cut off problem that USB does as a reader in the above thread highlighted.

However i wouldnt do any of that with XP.
following is a message i posted from NCIX, and havent gotten any answer:

http://forum.ncix.com/forums/index...._id=18867&msgcount=0&overclockid=0#msg1528028



I have a 2.5 inch version of this exact same enclosure, since there alot more ppl who are using the 3.5 inch version, I thought I would have better luck with my quesiton here.

I took out the toshiba 160g 5400 HDD(which has Vista installed) from my laptop and put it into this Vantec enclosure. To my surpize, it atually worked, and the laptop successfully botted from sSATA and everything ran as if the HDD was in the laptop.( Vista actually assinegned C: to this external HDD)

But I wanted to run XP as an external booting option, so:

1. I installed the HDD back to the laptop.
2. In bios I set the HDD mode from sata Enhanced to Compatible( since XP doesnt have sata drivers. But I still don't know how these different mode works But if the mode was left at enhanced, during XP cd boot up, windows wont see the drive, even if bios detected it! )
3. Booted from XP cd, and installed XP (as usual).
4. Removed the HDD from the laptop and put it in the Vantec enclosure.
5. Change the bios booting sequence to add "external periferals" ahead of the internal HDD.( just the same as when i booted when i had vista in it)
6. Reboot.

Now this is the weird part, for a split of second, my laptop showed the XP booting screen with a loading bar moving, and then i got the blue screen, and then it rebooted. And this will just keep on happening as long as I leave the bios boot sequence unchenged.

Any ideas? From what i heard before, I can't boot from USB because during windows start up sequence, it cuts the power to the usb as a testing procedure, I tried that, and it did seem to be the case. But this is eSATA, and considering the fact that I WAS ABLE to boot Vista from it.



Now i know from the thread i highligted in the beginning, that USB power cut off insue is solved.
My question is:

1. How can i make XP work in eSATA? I know you can sliptream the XP boot disk with the drivers, but would that work with an eSATA?
2 .Can I go into mine already installed XP i386 folder and do those command line changes to make this work with usb?


If the original posters of this subject could please shine some light on this, that would be great.

thanks

 

I am tryin to boot vista off of my 320g WD Passport...rason being, this would be a great IT tool to use if a computer wont boot. Just plug this joker up and boot into vista so you can recover the important files and wipe the drive. The reason I want vista is because I dont think i will hav as many driver issues bc its a newer OS. I know it is possible to boot from USB because I have a vista setup on my 4g thumb drive that I use at work. I tried to install vista directly on the primary partition of the passport but windows would not let me install on a USB device. So instantly i try to find a way around it by installing it on a slave IDE drive, then copying all of its contents to the passport extrnal hdd. Before I waste my time...does anyone know if this will for sure work and boot into vista off of the ext drive??

 

cebolao, sorry for the late reply (w.r.t. PM)

It seems you have all the bases covered, I'd try all the things that you mention. I haven't done an XP booting from an external, so I don't have much insight to offer.

Personally, I'd try things in the following order:
1. Patching XP with the SATA drivers. Try to boot.
2. If that doesn't work, install XP from an XP kit slipstreamed with the SATA drivers.
3. Apply the USB fix and run the XP off an USB connection.

 

I'm curious how this will work out. I was contemplating having a external XP setup for recovery bootups myself.

 

Hey EBE. Ya I am still trying to figure out how to slipstream the SATA derivers. The whole thing seems quite comsumming, hence I havent tried it yet. And I got lucky enough to have the bios set up with "compatible" instead of "enhenced", and I got away with that in XP so far. However I have no idea what that does to the actual system, or if it has any performance loss or not. Any ideas?

Ok just a little up date. I got the XP running off my 2.5 160G usb drive. I did the instalation as well. Everything thru USB. Followed the guide and it works.
Now there are 2 anoying issues:

1. XP got no drivers for any of the stuff for my laptop. You name it it doesnt have it!. From video to the camera to the finger print reader, to the wifi to the bluetooh and even the sound. Such a pain! and having a hard time finding it since Asus doesnt offer anything for xp.

2. Once XP boots from the external usb, it makes the external usb as you default C: and makes the internal HDD(ie your vista drive) as a D: and your dvd driver E: and so on. Now the problem comes when you have stuff connected to the usb ports. If you are like me, and have a sh^t load of stuff connected to your USB ports, ( i got 7!) then its a real pain. Everytime when I boot the sytem, XP shows me the "New Hardware found" window. That's fine, and follow it as usual, XP finds the drivers, and I install them from the bood disk, 7 TIMES for all the items found. The problems is, the next time XP boot, this thing happens all over again, its like XP never installed the drivers at all! I think it has something to do with where XP installs the drivers. But the fact that it boots the USB drive as C: should solve this problem.

I have booted Vista off eSATA before. At that time, vista partition was read as a D: or a E: partition( depending on whatever driver i have installed on USB). But not the primary C:

Now p-moe, I gotta ask you. Did Vista booting disk allow you to install Vista straight on to you USB 4GB drive? did you have to do any ground work before that?

BTW, I got tired fidling arround my F3SA with its pain in the a$$ ATI HD2600.
I got the monitor thing going, but now the sytem freeze whenever i try to run Vista media center! SO I SWITCHING TO a F8SV. I heard so many good things about it. First thing I am gonna do when i get it, is clean the sytem up from all the bloataware and do a xp install

ANYBODY GOT THE DRIVERS LIST FOR XP FOR F8SV?