How can I boot from an external Hard Drive.?

[Geek-9pm]

But not an excternal eSATA drive. I mean to say it is  an exrernal hard drive that has a USB interface. This drive I have used as an extrernal backup device.  I am sure it is in good condition. Now I what to see if I can make it bootable and use it as a normal thing any time I want to boot up some other operationg system.

In this case I want to use a legal 32 bit Widnows 7 DVD to intstall Windows 7 onto my extrernal hard drive taht was untill now used onlyu as a backup device. It is a older IDE type with a USB interface.

I read sosmewhere taht you can boot Windows 7 from a USWB flash drive. If so, then it ought to be more easy to do it froma standard hard drive using a USB intterface. Is that right? 

I found this articl on wickihow. Nowbefore I try it,  I want  to see if you know more about this. Here is the link:
https://www.wikihow.com/Boot-from-an-External-Hard-Drive

I have an old Dell 755 desktop with a triple boot. I do not want to jepordise my triple bnoot setup, so I would like to the anexcternal drive.
(No, I amd not lazy. Everytime I open up my Dell to do anything I cringe at the thught that I might bradk something. It is not a full size destop and I am getting to be very clumsy. It is likely I will break something. I have before.   )

Any suggesntion? 

[Salmon Trout]

This has been done to death years ago. Face it. This is not going to work. Windows is designed to run from an internal drive. Furthermore, the EULA specifically stipulates that you are licensed to install Windows on an internal drive. Maybe some brave/crazy souls have committed demented brain surgery on a Windows install to make it run from a USB drive, and coaxed it into limping into a crash-prone state, do you seriously think you will get anything like convincing performance with all the disk i/o crawling down a USB wire?

[patio]

And even though in theory it can be done as a long time Member knowin our regulations you should be elsewhere askin this...just sayin...

[Geek-9pm]

My problem is that I forget as fast as I lern.'Yes, I now recall taht you can not do what I w ant to do.
So this things the show up ion in a serach really confuse me. There ought to be a BS (Bad Source) filter in Google to turn of the BS that shows up. 

Wiat.. if they did that they would lose a lot or revenue.   

Thanks for the reminder. I will use an SATA drive and hang it over the edge of the case cover.  If the cables will reach.

[DaveLembke]

PM'd Geek on a legal way to do this via sticking to SATA connection similar to it hanging out the side but cleaner and low cost. Most would go with a removable drive bay for a 5.25" bay, but I went with a different method to connect a bare drive externally to get SATA speed vs the USB bottleneck and its all legal.

This wont work for older systems with IDE drives though.  That system likely has a SATA port in it might be older 150 or newer 300 speed, but not 600MB/s.

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks for the PM.
What works was something like what  you siad. The objective is to get Widowsd to see a hard drive on a SATA port and connected to the bujil-in stuff.

This Dell 755 has two SATA ports and a floppy connector. And lots of USB ports. But Windows 7 refuses to install no a hard drive on the any USB port.

He is what  works. Remove the DVD drive and make it extrernal with an eternal PSU and a USB / SATA adapter. Th BIOS has not problem booting from an external DVD drive on a USB port. The legal  Windows 7 install DVD sits there.

In BIOS disable the SATA 0 device, but leave it connected. Bow connect a second SATA Hard Drive to SATA-1 and make sure it is enable in BIOS.

Now when the Windows 7 DVD  is booted, it only sees the seconddrive as the only drive. The first drive is physically present, but not enabled. So at last I have a new install of Windows 7 on a clean hard drive. No I can do the test I need to do  to see why I can not install a specific program .

So that was the answer. Just make the DVD drive the external drive. How simple!

Thanks for yur  help. 

[Quantos]

You really think that posting about breaking the EULA is a good idea?

There is no 'legal' way to do it.  I'm thinking of two words, the first one is Village

[Salmon Trout]

I'm thinking of two words, the first one is Village

Is the second one "People"?

[Quantos]

It could be....

[Geek-9pm]

Furthermore, the EULA specifically stipulates that you are licensed to install Windows on an internal drive. M

Where? Can not find it.

[patio]

Topic Closed.