problems booting from usb drive

hello, i am trying to make a bootable image of my system partition on a usb HD. I am using XXClone, and i tested doing a bootable image on a blank partition and it worked. i could perfectly boot the computer from the original source partition or the new target partition without any problem.

so i decided to do the same on a usb HD. the image was created without any problems, but when i try to boot from it i get a shyny BSOD. after choosing to boot from the usb drive, the windows XP image appears for a second, and then the error blue page.

my computer is a XPS M1330 with windows XP. can anybody help me? do i need a special bios modification to boot from usb? do i need to make any modification to the boot.ini or autoexec.bat files?

thanks a lot

 

no one can help me?

 

Not all computers/bios will support booting from a usb device. The ones that do I think it mostly works with usb flash drives and not hard drives. Dont as me why but I think there is a difference.

 

well, then i could try storing my hard drive's image on a pen drive, but i really do not think it'll work. anyway, thanks a lot for your answer

 

I don't think you can install XP on a USB drive. You can, however, use BartPE and install a slimmed down Windows XP shell that can aid in recovery. I use it, and it works just fine.

 

can i use as the source of the installation my own system or do i have to use a installation cd?

 

You need the CD. BartPE requires a CD, because it needs to use the installation files. You should google BartPE, and then visit the website.

 

i see... then, isnt there any way of doing a autobootable image of my current system disc to use in the case that my current installation becomes unusable?

i guess i could use a live cd, install the recovery program and copy the image from my usb drive to my internal disk, but, is there any way to avoid using the live cd?

if i create an image of my current installation on a pen drive (not installing windows, just copying an exact image of my internal system partition on the pen drive), would it be able to boot the pc? (i know i could test it instead of asking, but i would need to buy a 8gb pen drive and they are quite expensive here, so i would like to know if anyone has tried before)

 

still need help. is there any way to make a bootable image from my system partition?

 

Try these links:

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/articles/AT6529478988.html
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

However, you will need a Windows CD. If you don't have one, I think you are out of luck.

 

yes, i have a windows xp cd installation cd. i just do not want to install windows more than once on my notebook. that is why i want to make a image of my current system partition and use it to restore my hard drive in case something goes wrong.

i have gone as far as to make the image on a external usb hard disk, in fact, it is supposed to be a bootable image, but everytime i try to boot from it, i get a beautiful BSOD.

from the links you posted i can see that what i want is not only possible, but i has already been done, but not through a image from the system partition, but from a fresh install on the usb drive. i will study those links deeper to see if there is a workaround to do the same the way i intend, this is, from a image instead of a fresh install.

thanks a lot

 

No problem. If all you want is the ability to restore an image, you might want to consider using BartPE. I installed it on a USB drive, and I can boot from that drive and make images and restore them as I see fit.

You will always get a BSOD when trying to use an existing image - it's looking in a specific spot for required DLLs and other drivers during the boot process, and when booting from a USB drive, those locations aren't the same. The only thing that may work is if you make a bootable jump drive using BartPE, and then you manually edit the boot.ini file on your bootable image, you can try to replace the drive locations to reflect the "correct" location when booting from the USB.