In article <OY0Gk6g$IHA.3556@xxxxxx>,
Bruce Chambers <bchambers@xxxxxx> wrote:

> > Myself, I see no harm in it, same user, same PC, etc.
> >

>
>
> If that's the only use made of the external drive installation, you'd
> be right; but then, what would be the point? After all, the only reason
> to use an external drive is portability. Otherwise, why bother?

Probably. I had not really thought about why external drives
are used, outside of the obvious reason of providing more
storage space, and as a "cushion" to have immediate access to
rapid emergency operation of a computer if the internal drive
gets thoroughly corrupted beyond quick repair.

Being a newbie with Vista, and with Windows OSs in general,
I seem to be zapping my PC horribly lately, especially when
it is "needed" for some task or other.



I would feel a lot better if I had a bootable version of
Vista to fall back on, until such time as I got around to
restoring my internal drive each time I accidentally
messed it up.


Those feelings will probably disappear when I get a bit more
adept at running Vista, instead of accidentally clobbering it
through my ignorance.

Mark-

I had about 10 000 000 0000 000 bsods before managing this
the vista usb solution. This avoids any ghosting or copying over
of OS install to diff drives. Avoids cross mounting registry hives.

drawback:needs another drive plugged in sata or ide channel or BSOD after install procedure (used or unused)
Meaning this boots off usb vista, if there is another hard drive present in the system. Has
something to do with vista verification of disk drives(for now). Working on a fake ckecksum. The ide or sata
drive doesnt need to boot, it justneeds to be present. If usb boot is slow its not the install but the hardware bios support on the system.
I read around and compiled my own way of doing so.

Vista wont start installation on a USB interface no matter what. It is embedded in the OS which I wasnt able to track down.
So I decided to use VMWARE 6 (may work with older vmware not sure).
You can download vmware and an eval license for 30 days can be emailed to you.
You can also try the free server version of vmware assuming it will work the same.
download vmware install it. (vmware is easy to use)

Step 1: Get vista installed on your drive either use 1a OR 1b

Step 1a: Install vista via ide/sata install
OR
Step 1b: Use vmware.
Create a new vmware for windows, pick custom pick lsi logic as scsi card (vista has support for this card)
use cdrom or iso as you wish for the vista install CD.
have your usb drive u want to install on, plugged in. Vmware will see this device as physical drive 1 (0 being your OS)
use physical disk(advanced) of your usb drive. Make sure you pick the
correct physical drive (drive 1 usually) or else you might wipe the current OS drive.
Use entire disk.
Click advanced on disk in virtual machine settings. Click on independent
and persistent changes for the disk.

Now, remove all assigned letters in disk management for the USB drive
(If you dont u can corrupt an install that way).
To make sure you clean install vista, remove all partitions in disk management of your USB drive.
(if you have needed data, you can still try but not guaranteed to work it may hang)
Disconnect USB drive!, reconnect.

Play vmware instance.
During vista install, create partitions, format partition (or else u might get corrupt boot as crcdisk error)
Vmware will show that drive as scsi disk under lsi logic controller, this is fine as vista will install on a scsi disk.

Step 2: (if you used step 1a just boot as normal on IDE/SATA)
Boot and go through the vista install procedure in vmware.
Let vista boot to the desktop the first time in the vmware
inside vmware vista do start-> run regedit (in the search box unlike XP)
goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\
Now edit tags
start = 0
Group = boot bus extender

on all these servies
usbccgp
usbehci
usbhub
usbstor
usbuhci
usbohci

If there are no "group" string values add them in for those services


exit regedit

step 3:
goto \windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository\usbstor.inf_bb2778a0
copy usbstor.sys into \windows\system32\drivers (ugh not sure why MS doesnt have it in here)
goto \windows\inf
take control and inherit perms for administrator of the inf folder, then
edit usbstor.inf,usbport.inf,usb.inf to have inside section
[*.AddService]
StartType = 0
LoadOrderGroup = boot bus extender


(This is because when you boot into regular desktop out of vmware it will find new usb interface
and mess up the startup type.)

shutdown vista

close vmware
Disconnect USB drive!, reconnect.

Step 4: (if you used step 1a plug drive into USB enclosure)
Now reboot your machine and select USB boot drive from bios boot. Machine should now boot
to vista desktop.
Also if it finds new usb devices or if drivers are added bsod. Make sure the
start type and groups dont change on the usb services (verify in regedit).
It will find your current hardware's usb device and install drivers for it.
problem is it can overwrite the original usb*.inf file and add new params into it.
double check this or when you reboot again boot will fail.
If you do windows update, fix the registry or it will fail. Update adds new files like the original.
After the drivers get installed for the first time it is safe to assume you wont
have to deal with it being reinstalled unless you goto another machine.
Of course you can always go back to the vmware instance and fix it there.
In short redo step 2 after first USB boot to desktop (finds new hardware), full update, machine change, plugging in new type
of storage USB devices for the first time. (e.g. the UHCI, OHCI, EHCI hardware types change the start type since drivers
weren't prepped yet. )


Hope its simple and straight forward. You can probably install xp and 200(0,3) this way too. (may need
lsi logic drivers to find boot disk though, vista,win2k3 has it natively)
EDIT: xp and windows 200(0,3) exhibit the same behavior of BSOD during boot. Even after
copying usbstor.sys and other files from driver cache cabs. So xp and win2k3 dont work currently.
Still maybe salvageable with other tweaks out there.

The is another way to get WAIK tools for vista and regedit the above changes directly in the boot(1,2).wim
and install(1,2,3,4,5,6).wim but I will leave that out to the daring. Vista installer still wont
do direct usb install though even with those usb service changes in the image.

If your drive doesnt show up under vmware for use then its targetting as removeable device.
you can install the xpfildrvr driver (the hitachi driver) to remedy that. (mostly for usb flash drives)
Careful about USB stick since it needs additional drivers to stop those write cycles in windows.
But atleast the install should be straight forward. No need for extra copying or dealing with
non working boot sectors as the install is directly on the destination.



Lazy mans quick install (step 2), step 3 maybe skipped, just do step 2 again when moving drive around and/or
after updates.
Close vmware, disconnect USB drive!, reconnect, goto disk management assign drive letter, copy inf file to your vista's c:\
Go back to disk management, deassign drive letter. Disconnect USB drive!, reconnect.
Run vmware, inside vmware right click install the inf file. It wont change the usb
inf files for you but it will add the reg and copy usbstor.sys for you. When you run
through updates, you can re install the inf file and reboot.

"Mark Conrad" wrote:

> As regards _why_ a user would want to boot from an
> external drive, that is a subject
> for a different thread.
>
> Mark-

Well, I for one prefer the facility provided by larger capacities found in
external drives. Case in point, portable drives are predominately used in
mobile computing environments. Following that, internal drive capacities for
mobile platforms seldom come anywhere near those of desktop/server capacities
for anything but the newest of devices.

My recent interest in this stemmed from a desire to build a multiOSboot
external drive, with ample room on each OS's volume for my notebook system. I
only have PATA internally, and a single USB2.0 (the platform is appx 2.5
years old, but still performing well with 2GB RAM on AMD x64 cpu). I wanted
to build a Win2008/XPsp2+/*NIX external drive on a WD 320GB external. I
suppose I could backup my operational XPsp2+ and install 08 on the internal,
and move my former image to VM... But I understand that overly large VM
images still suffer from some performance issues that a multiboot would
likely circumvent.