How to create bootable USB external hard drive?

Subject: How to create bootable USB external hard drive?
System: Acer Aspire M3400 desktop w/ Windows 7

My Acer desktop PC has an internal 640GB hard drive;
and I have a 2TB external USB hard drive. I would like
to copy my internal drive to the external one, so that,
if the internal one fails, I will be able to boot off
the external one and continue working while I seek a
replacement for the internal one. How to do this?

TIA.

C.M. Burns schreef in bericht ...
Subject: How to create bootable USB external hard drive?
System: Acer Aspire M3400 desktop w/ Windows 7

My Acer desktop PC has an internal 640GB hard drive;
and I have a 2TB external USB hard drive. I would like
to copy my internal drive to the external one, so that,
if the internal one fails, I will be able to boot off
the external one and continue working while I seek a
replacement for the internal one. How to do this?

Not possible with Windows. Maybe with Linux.

--
Wie alles begrijpt, die alles vergeeft...
____________________
NIGH****CHER
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

""NachtWacht"" wrote in message
...
C.M. Burns schreef in bericht
...
Subject: How to create bootable USB external hard drive?
System: Acer Aspire M3400 desktop w/ Windows 7

My Acer desktop PC has an internal 640GB hard drive;
and I have a 2TB external USB hard drive. I would like
to copy my internal drive to the external one, so that,
if the internal one fails, I will be able to boot off
the external one and continue working while I seek a
replacement for the internal one. How to do this?

Not possible with Windows. Maybe with Linux.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Natively you could boot off an eSATA drive to run Win7, but then you would
have to also have a second copy of Win7 for it to be activated and be
constantly backing up to it to maintain the same information that you have
on your regular drive.

Alternatively you could be backing up regularly making incremental images
and if the drive either crashes or won't start have a fresh drive handy to
restore the image to it. Using Acronis TrueImage makes this a very easy
solution to what you are suggesting.

--
Jan Alter

C.M. Burns wrote:
Subject: How to create bootable USB external hard drive?
System: Acer Aspire M3400 desktop w/ Windows 7

My Acer desktop PC has an internal 640GB hard drive;
and I have a 2TB external USB hard drive. I would like
to copy my internal drive to the external one, so that,
if the internal one fails, I will be able to boot off
the external one and continue working while I seek a
replacement for the internal one. How to do this?

TIA.

I'm no expert, but I did spend an hour experimenting, cause
your question was interesting.

My test machine is an old Dell 4550.
I pulled the hard drive and stuck it into an external
usb enclosure and tried to boot it.
The drive was not visible to the bios, so no dice.
I ran the winxp install CD. Same problem.

I replaced the hdd with a usb stick containing linux.
It was recognized by the BIOS and
Booted just fine.
Inserting a non-bootable USB stick still resulted in
a USB device visible to the BIOS. Of course it wouldn't
boot, but it was VISIBLE. Problem appears to be with the usb
enclosure, not the computer.

Different external hdd chips have different functionality.
I don't know how to determine except to just try it.

So, your first problem is to determine if your usb drive
is visible to the bios. Boot into the bios boot menu and see if
booting from the usb drive is there. If not, your
external drive ain't gonna do it.

I've never tried to install windows on an external drive, so
don't know if there are other issues.

If that works, you're up against the fact that the way most people
have their system set up, what you want is impractical.
You'd have to set up BIG partitions that match ALL the ones on your
internal drive and clone them to the external HDD. May not work
unless you swap the drives before cloning, make it boot, then swap them
back. Still may not boot from usb, but if it booted internal, swapping
the drives back should still boot. What's left on the external drive
could be used for whatever it's currently used for.
You still have a synchronization problem. You can copy files from the
internal to external drive, but programs won't work that way.
You could get around this by using an image backup program like acronis
to keep backups, then restore a backup after swapping the drives.

Compounding all this is that acer may have added one or more additional
partitions.
The default install of windows7 puts a small partition before C
that screws up the drive mapping when you're cloning drives.
Unless your partitions map EXACTLY the same, restoring an image
backup still won't boot.

I solved the problems by using linux gparted to partition the drive
BEFORE installing win7. I have a 25GB C drive that contains all the stuff
that must be imaged to work. The rest (D:, E is just files that can
be copied.
My full backups of C fit on a DVD. Doesn't take long, so I do it
frequently.
If, like most people, you have one HUGE C: partition, what you want
will be impractical.

If downtime is expensive, I'd suggest you buy another drive and clone the
internal drive to it. Make it boot internal, then you have the option
to swap it in and restore a recent backup when your internal drive fails.

C.M. Burns wrote:

Subject: How to create bootable USB external hard drive?
System: Acer Aspire M3400 desktop w/ Windows 7

My Acer desktop PC has an internal 640GB hard drive;
and I have a 2TB external USB hard drive. I would like
to copy my internal drive to the external one, so that,
if the internal one fails, I will be able to boot off
the external one and continue working while I seek a
replacement for the internal one. How to do this?

Apparently it can be done:

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

On 04/07/2011 12:01 AM, larry moe 'n curly wrote:


C.M. Burns wrote:

Subject: How to create bootable USB external hard drive?
System: Acer Aspire M3400 desktop w/ Windows 7

My Acer desktop PC has an internal 640GB hard drive;
and I have a 2TB external USB hard drive. I would like
to copy my internal drive to the external one, so that,
if the internal one fails, I will be able to boot off
the external one and continue working while I seek a
replacement for the internal one. How to do this?

Apparently it can be done:

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




Correct

Windows is *not* designed to boot from a USB drive but if it's seriously
hacked it can.

However the comments I've seen from people who've done it...say
it's too slow to be of much use and it was way more trouble than it's
worth to do so.


The smart thing to do is get an eSATA drive...
with SATA ...as far as the OS is concerned ...there is no distinction
between internal and external