Putting Windows on External Drive

[rjbinney]

My HD in my laptop went bad on me Friday afternoon - BSOD with "unrecoverable_error", chkdsk gets about halfway through, the works. Not quite certain what happened - had just cancelled a defrag, and had been deleting lots of stuff off of it (it had been performing really slowly for a while, so I was trying to clean it up); probably just a confluence of events that created a toxic environment. No big whoop. BUT:

I was going to mount it on another machine, pull off the data I needed (hadn't been backed up in a while - it was the machine that basically ran all the home backups, but there was still a few bits and bites to recover.

Then I was thinking I'd go ahead and reformat it - but I wasn't certain if I could set it up as a bootable Windows disk while it was mounted on another machine. I mean, I'm certain it's possible - but I sure want to avoid screwing up the machine I'm on (particularly as I've got the original XP recovery disc, but the machine I'll be using is running 7).

I could always plug it back into the original laptop and reformat it, but I'm on the road for a few weeks. So I have the drive, but not the machine.

So, I guess the question is, is it possible to format an external drive and put a bootable XP OS on that drive?

Thanks

[patio]

Windows will not install /boot properly from an external HDD...MS designed it that way ...
Your best bet would be to mount your drive in an external enclosure and/or use a laptop to IDE converter on a working desktop machine...
Then retrieve whatever data you need...format it...then re-install it in the laptop and do a clean install of Windows...

Best of Luck...

[rjbinney]

Sorry - once I'm done, I'll put the drive back IN the laptop so it becomes an INTERNAL drive...

But I'm doing the data extraction whilst on the road (with the drive mounted on an IDE connector), and was thinking I'd just go ahead and format the thing at the same time.

[patio]

Thats what i'd do...sorry if my suggestion sounded otherwise...

[Salmon Trout]

Sorry - once I'm done, I'll put the drive back IN the laptop so it becomes an INTERNAL drive...

But I'm doing the data extraction whilst on the road (with the drive mounted on an IDE connector), and was thinking I'd just go ahead and format the thing at the same time.

In case there is confusion and ambiguity: put simply, part of preparing a new hard disk for use in a computer involves creating one or more partitions on it and then "fomatting" each. Note: no 're' prefix. Formatting a volume means creating a filesystem on it. NTFS, FAT, ext2, reiserfs, there are different types. It blanks the volume or disk. When this has been done you have an empty volume. You can do this to an internal or external drive. However, a slang, non-technically approved word, "reformat" seems to have come into use, -- I don't like it -- and usually people use it to mean "Sticking a Windows disk in the optical drive, and then using it to 1. format the drive, 2. Install Windows on it.". You cannot do this to an external drive.

[rjbinney]

I suspect it's like "flammable"/"inflammable"... The drive is formatted now, so I will be formatting it again... So, yes, I'm formatting it, but I'm also REformatting it...




Obviously, my concern is thus:
Let's call my (working) laptop's internal hard drive "C", let's call the CD-ROM drive "D", and let's call the IDE-mounted wonky HD pulled from the other laptop "A".

My concern is that if I pop the XP CD into D, and tell it to (re)format A, I don't want anything untoward to happen to C.

Just wanted to confirm that I'll be OK.

Thanks

[Salmon Trout]

My concern is that if I pop the XP CD into D, and tell it to (re)format A, I don't want anything untoward to happen to C.

Just wanted to confirm that I'll be OK.

I am not clear why you want to use a CD to format a drive. You can do it from within Windows. You start your laptop, boot into Windows, open My Computer, see the disks that are listed, by drive letter and type, choose the one you want to format, which will be the external one, right click that disk's icon, select "Format..." (This option will not appear for your C:\ drive) Then select the options like quick/complete format, filesystem type, volume name, etc, click "Start", then respond appropriately to the "Are you sure?" message, and the disk you selected will be formatted.

[rjbinney]

Because when I put that drive BACK into its original laptop, it will be the boot drive. My understanding is I must use the MS OEM disc to do that.

What I don't know is if I can do that when I (and the drive) are a couple of thousand miles away from the laptop it will eventually be (re)united with.

[Computer_Commando]

1.  Because when I put that drive BACK into its original laptop, it will be the boot drive.
2.  My understanding is I must use the MS OEM disc to do that.
3.  What I don't know is if I can do that when I (and the drive) are a couple of thousand miles away from the laptop it will eventually be (re)united with.

1.  Irrelevant.  Doesn't matter where or how it will be used.
2.  Incorrect.
3.  Irrelevant, again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting
You are making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

[rjbinney]

I know I'm being dense, but everything in that article appears (to me) that all it does is prepare the drive for read/write operations.

I'm trying to put the OS on it, so it becomes the internal, bootable (and REbootable!)  c:\ drive for another machine.

[Salmon Trout]

I know I'm being dense,

I would not be so uncharitable as to say that you are being "dense", but I think I can justifiably accuse you of not having read thoroughly the replies so far in this thread. Maybe you should RE-read them.

Patio wrote this on the 25th July:

Windows will not install /boot properly from an external HDD...MS designed it that way ...
Your best bet would be to mount your drive in an external enclosure and/or use a laptop to IDE converter on a working desktop machine...
Then retrieve whatever data you need...format it...then re-install it in the laptop and do a clean install of Windows...

He put it admirably clearly. Maybe you prefer numbered points -

1. Windows will only install on a fixed (internal) disk. This has to be in the machine for which the installation is intended. It will not install in an external (e.g. USB) drive.

2. This is deliberate, by design, and cannot be got around.

3. When Windows is installed on a machine, a tailored install is created that takes account of the particular hardware found: motherboard, chipset, display/network/sound cards or onboard chipsets. For this reason it is also impossible to install Windows on a fixed disk and then put that disk in another different machine and expect it to boot.

4. This applies double for an OEM disk which can only be used on the hardware with which it was purchased.

but everything in that article appears (to me) that all it does is prepare the drive for read/write operations.

Yes.

I'm trying to put the OS on it, so it becomes the internal, bootable (and REbootable!)  c:\ drive for another machine.

You can't do this. This has now been explained twice. I'll say it once more. You can't do this. If you want to get Windows on that disk, the only way you will achieve this is to install it as an internal disk in the machine on which you intend to install Windows.

[rjbinney]

but I think I can justifiably accuse you of not having read thoroughly the replies so far in this thread.

You can, but you'd be very wrong. I have read very clearly - but obviously I felt my particular question wasn't being answered, while questions I wasn't asking were being answered. The closest was your FIRST answer - but even then, I was unsure. Hence my follow-up questions.

The way I read Patio's response was that I could not boot Windows from an external drive, nor will it install FROM an external drive.

What I'm trying to do is not either of those conditions.

I didn't see an answer, obviously, to what I was specifically asking. "Format it.. then re-install in the laptop and do a clean install..." didn't make it clear that I could NOT do the clean install PRIOR to adding it to the machine. Surely IT departments format bootable drives away from their ultimate home machines time and again?

1. Windows will only install on a fixed (internal) disk. This has to be in the machine for which the installation is intended.

Actually the FIRST time that point was made. That was what I was explicitly trying to determine. Again, I would think there is a way to work around that (after all, we've all received replacement hard drives that already have an OS on them), but didn't know.

You can't do this. This has now been explained twice. I'll say it once more. You can't do this.

I thought I was respectfully asking for an answer to a question. When I didn't get an answer that made sense, I asked again - and I thought respectfully - until I got an answer that did make sense.

If that was frustrating or upsetting, I apologize.

[Salmon Trout]

Surely IT departments format bootable drives away from their ultimate home machines time and again?

If they have a large number of identical machines and a Windows volume or corporate licence they can deploy a standard disk image.

Again, I would think there is a way to work around that

You seem to be a questioner who knows (or thinks they do) more than the people supplying the answers. I salute you, and wish you every success in the future.

after all, we've all received replacement hard drives that already have an OS on them

Have we? I never have. Maybe if you have a branded PC you can get a disk with the standard install image on like I described above, but I think "we all" is a bit too wide-ranging.