Install and boot Windows XP on a thumb drive?

In ,
RnR typed on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:07:57 -0500:
On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:01:54 -0500, RnR wrote:

On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 16:13:38 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

In
,
vbDavidC typed on Thu, 2 Apr 2009 11:26:46 -0700 (PDT):
Will this be possible? If not, can I do the same using an external
USB disk drive instead of a USB flash drive?

If you are referring to an external CD/DVD drive, yes that will
work and would be a very easy solution if you don't get the USB
thing working. I've heard several people who have Netbooks who
installed Windows 7 used an external drive.

It might work for Windows 7, but Windows XP needs to be SP2 or
higher, Windows 2000 needs SP4, and the older ones, I don't think
so. And Windows 2000 & XP requires a lot of hacking of the registry
to make it work off of the USB device. The reason being is that
Windows 2000 and XP resets the USB ports in the middle of booting.
No problem as long as your boot device isn't an USB device. Oops!
This case it is and Windows hangs.

I wanted to try this about a year ago or so and I got the impression
that it was either not easy to do or not possible. I think the last
thing I remember was something to do with the MBR but I admit I'm
fuzzy on this subject now. I just keep reading till I got frustrated
and gave up . As I recall some claimed they got it and others
said it didn't work.

Just to add here... I love the idea so if anyone can instruct a dummy
like me in writing how to do it, I'll give it a shot. I'm using xp
pro sp2 currently.

Yes it can be done. But it is a lot of work because Windows wants to
reset the USB ports in the middle of loading. And if this is a boot
drive, the OS can't continue to load and freezes. And it requires a few
pages of registry hacks to fix this problem.

And say you fixed it and got it working. What are you going to do with
it? As Windows will only run on the machine it was installed on (or the
same like machine). And secondly, it will run so much slower anyway. So
what good would it be anyway?

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2

In article , BillW50 wrote:
And say you fixed it and got it working. What are you going to do with
it? As Windows will only run on the machine it was installed on (or the
same like machine). And secondly, it will run so much slower anyway. So
what good would it be anyway?

I will use it to run anti-virus software and anti-spyware software. I
might also run disk defragmentation software.

By the way, thank you for the information you have posted to this
thread.
--
David Arnstein (00)
{{ }}
^^

In ,
David Arnstein typed on Fri, 3 Apr 2009 20:55:10 +0000 (UTC):
In article , BillW50
wrote:
And say you fixed it and got it working. What are you going to do
with it? As Windows will only run on the machine it was installed on
(or the same like machine). And secondly, it will run so much slower
anyway. So what good would it be anyway?

I will use it to run anti-virus software and anti-spyware software. I
might also run disk defragmentation software.

By the way, thank you for the information you have posted to this
thread.

Hi David! Sure no problem. If you go through with this, it will be only
good for that one computer (or one just like it), you know that right?
Plus it wouldn't run as fast either. So I see a lot of negatives
already.

If you go through with this, the original that you copy or clone, will
remember what drive letter it was copied too. And when you start it up
on its own, it will be using that other drive letter and fail to boot.
There are a couple of fixes for this if you want to go this route. The
easiest fix is to use Windows 9x FDISK to create a new MBR. As it has a
slight bug that clears the serial number and the later Windows versions
will have no memory which hard drive it was before and assign it Drive C
again.

The old and tried method to do what you want to is to take that hard
drive out and hook it up to another computer as a second or later new
hard drive. Then you can do anything you want to it (well almost).
Although that takes some work and another computer.

Another method I liked a lot in the past, was to have another Windows on
the same machine. That way through a boot menu, you can boot up one or
the other. Although with viruses these days, you should turn off the
second one through the BIOS or disconnect it if possible. Won't work if
it is on another partition on the same drive though. I mean the BIOS or
disconnecting trick.

Another idea is to make a BartPE boot CD or flash drive. This is like
WinPE and they are a barebones version of Windows which can do most of
what you want and runnable on most other computers too. You can get at
least one anti-virus checker running on it (I forget which one it is).
Running a spyware checker, I am not sure. But everything else you should
be good to go. BartPE can even access the other registry if you need to
modify it.

Well I have to get going here. But this should give you enough to think
about and possibly have some more questions.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2

On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 20:55:10 +0000 (UTC), (David
Arnstein) wrote:

In article , BillW50 wrote:
And say you fixed it and got it working. What are you going to do with
it? As Windows will only run on the machine it was installed on (or the
same like machine). And secondly, it will run so much slower anyway. So
what good would it be anyway?

I will use it to run anti-virus software and anti-spyware software. I
might also run disk defragmentation software.

By the way, thank you for the information you have posted to this
thread.


You don't need to do this. They have portable software for what you
want to do. It will run off the usb thumb drive.

On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 12:33:06 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,
RnR typed on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:07:57 -0500:
On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:01:54 -0500, RnR wrote:

On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 16:13:38 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

In
,
vbDavidC typed on Thu, 2 Apr 2009 11:26:46 -0700 (PDT):
Will this be possible? If not, can I do the same using an external
USB disk drive instead of a USB flash drive?

If you are referring to an external CD/DVD drive, yes that will
work and would be a very easy solution if you don't get the USB
thing working. I've heard several people who have Netbooks who
installed Windows 7 used an external drive.

It might work for Windows 7, but Windows XP needs to be SP2 or
higher, Windows 2000 needs SP4, and the older ones, I don't think
so. And Windows 2000 & XP requires a lot of hacking of the registry
to make it work off of the USB device. The reason being is that
Windows 2000 and XP resets the USB ports in the middle of booting.
No problem as long as your boot device isn't an USB device. Oops!
This case it is and Windows hangs.

I wanted to try this about a year ago or so and I got the impression
that it was either not easy to do or not possible. I think the last
thing I remember was something to do with the MBR but I admit I'm
fuzzy on this subject now. I just keep reading till I got frustrated
and gave up . As I recall some claimed they got it and others
said it didn't work.

Just to add here... I love the idea so if anyone can instruct a dummy
like me in writing how to do it, I'll give it a shot. I'm using xp
pro sp2 currently.

Yes it can be done. But it is a lot of work because Windows wants to
reset the USB ports in the middle of loading. And if this is a boot
drive, the OS can't continue to load and freezes. And it requires a few
pages of registry hacks to fix this problem.

And say you fixed it and got it working. What are you going to do with
it? As Windows will only run on the machine it was installed on (or the
same like machine). And secondly, it will run so much slower anyway. So
what good would it be anyway?

I don't recall reading it will be slower but if it is, I agree with
you.

In ,
RnR typed on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:16:02 -0500:
On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 12:33:06 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:
Yes it can be done. But it is a lot of work because Windows wants to
reset the USB ports in the middle of loading. And if this is a boot
drive, the OS can't continue to load and freezes. And it requires a
few pages of registry hacks to fix this problem.

And say you fixed it and got it working. What are you going to do
with it? As Windows will only run on the machine it was installed on
(or the same like machine). And secondly, it will run so much slower
anyway. So what good would it be anyway?

I don't recall reading it will be slower but if it is, I agree with
you.

Well the reason why I say slower is because of a number of things:

1) Most flash drives are the cheap MLC type. They can read fast, but
they write slow. And far worse than the listed specs when you can find
them. As the specs doesn't include the erase or the wear leveling
cycles.

2) Windows installed on a flash, writes to a flash. Linux Live distros,
writes to the RAM. You can correct this with Windows by adding MS EWF
(free from the Internet).

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2