External drive

Frank1

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I know there is no such thing as a dumb question, but I have one that might come close. Can Windows 8 be installed on an external drive via a USB cable? I have an external drive that I use for backup. If it would work, I would create a new volume on it and install on that.
 

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I like your opening sentence, but no, it is not close.

Windows 7 definitely does not allow this. I think people have worked out hacks or whatnot, but since I don't have an external drive, I haven't followed this at all. I can't speak of personal experience.

So I am guessing it is the same for 8.

But fafhrd presents us with a very interesting option that might work. It all depends on if imagex plays nicely with your external. I have personally used it and it does work very well, on an internal drive.

Install as he recommends:

http://www.eightforums.com/installa...s-8-machine-less-than-1-gb-ram.html#post72719
 

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It should work fine.
That is a standard deployment method - I use it all the time.
Had an issue with win8 - a problem with the drive, it seems.

Installed fine to another drive
 

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I cannot say if a removable external drive would be acceptable or not. Removable devices, like USB sticks, can be installed with specialized portable versions of Windows. It may be possible to fool Windows into thinking that a USB hard disk is a legitimate device for installation. What is also difficult to say is if the system is installed, will it be portable and usable on other devices?

If Windows fails in some of its basic checks, which would include inadequate hardware resources, although the install.wim image could be applied to the drive, the sysprep specialize step would probably not be able to finish.

I have had this happen on a partition of only 10GB (although I know it should physically install in 8GB or less, including swapfiles), but other resources also could have been limiting - this was a piece of 12-year old kit. The installation did not fail gracefully enough to inform me what the problem was.

I've installed in 15GB no problem, even 64-bit versions. Obviously memory, processor, graphics and other hardware all play their part. If there are no working drivers then the legacy device will fail.
 

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What is also difficult to say is if the system is installed, will it be portable and usable on other devices?

If it actually works to begin with - Then very likely bsod upon first boot on another system and then the next reboot, Windows figures out the devices well enough to get to desktop. Dirty but works (as when people unknowingly do this with their internal HDD from one system and put it in another, thinking it's all gravy.)
 

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I've decided against using the external drive and have installed it on Virtual box. Thanks for your input.
 

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Hi,

What is also difficult to say is if the system is installed, will it be portable and usable on other devices?

If it actually works to begin with - Then very likely bsod upon first boot on another system and then the next reboot, Windows figures out the devices well enough to get to desktop. Dirty but works (as when people unknowingly do this with their internal HDD from one system and put it in another, thinking it's all gravy.)

It can be done but it a long and winding road involving a particular version of imagex (from a beta version of Vista IIRC), two different WAIKs and some registry tricks resetting the installation so it goes back into HW detection mode every time it's plugged in etc., etc.

So possible yes, worth it probably not. Oh, that's for W7 BTW. I don't think anyone tried the same box of tricks on W8 yet.

Cheers, ;)
 

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Hi there
I assume you mean can you boot and RUN W8 from an external HDD. (You can INSTALL W8 on any disk you choose but this will have to be normally the systems internal boot disk so you will need to open the machine and connect your HDD after W8 is installed).

:::: BUT W8 has a great feature -- WINDOWS TO GO which allows exactly what I think you want --boot and RUN from the external device.

So YOU CAN DO IT --follow the instructions carefully. And ignore the previous post --sorry guy but it doesn't take too long - especially if you are installing to an external HDD rather than a USB stick.

I think the previous guy living in Belgium has got ONE and TWO on his mind - because of the TWO language syndrome --actually I LIKE working in Belgium and it's BEER HEAVEN too.

YOU DO NOT NEED TWO WAIKS - the WAIK from W7 is fine to get IMAGEX from.

Installing on an external HDD is better than a USB stick for many reasons - but it's EXACTLY the same procedure.

http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/5103-windows-8-go-usb-stick.html

Cheers
jimbo
 

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Hi,

:::: BUT W8 has a great feature -- WINDOWS TO GO which allows exactly what I think you want --boot and RUN from the external device.

Sorry, Jimbo but I do not think that actually is what he wants.

This is what Windows to go is about:

Windows To Go - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yet what he wants is a W8 installation able to be plugged in any of his computer systems which I assume are not all identical hardware wise...
IOW, a hardware agnostic install on an external drive. USB is inevitably seen by the system as a removable device (unless you trick it into thinking it is a fixed drive) whereas an external HDD (such as E-sata) is considered as internal by the system.
Both types are useable but the USB device needs to be seen as fixed drive hence needs some extra trickery.

Note also that the method described (succinctly and from the top of my head) has been tested using W7 as I mentioned in my previous post.
While I don't see any reason why it should not work it does come with that particular caveat.

Cheers, ;)

P.S. Signing off with a "Cheers" does not turn a Belgian into a beer drinker, does it? :party:
 
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I have installed it on an eSata drive and a USB2 and a USB3 stick. On the eSata drive I made a classic installation. On the USB stick I used this procedure. I assume the same procedure can be applied to an external disk. When I get my hands on a spare SSD, I am going to try that in a USB3 enclosure - a HDD is probably too slow (like my USB2 stick).

The USB3 stick version is real fun and very fast. But you have to get a stick with appr. the same characteristics as the one I describe in my procedure - the access time of that stick is 0.5ms. Boot is 38 seconds and shutdown is 14 seconds. And the operation is very, very fluent.
 

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Hi there
.....Yet what he wants is a W8 installation able to be plugged in any of his computer systems which I assume are not all identical hardware wise...


That is EXACTLY what Windows 2 Go is all about -- plug it into any machine -- it spends a few minutes updating its hardware and readying devices and it runs just like Windows 8 and uses the USB as its c: drive with full read write capability .

You could even REMOVE the internal HDD and this will still run as a normal Windows system. This is what I assumed he wants.

There is no problem whatsoever creating an INSTALL USB which INSTALLS W8 on any machine just like the DVD -- but that is NOT what I'm sure the OP really wants.

He wants to plug an external device into ANY computer --boot it up and run W8 --that's EXACTLY what WINTOGO does.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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Hi,

I have installed it on an eSata drive and a USB2 and a USB3 stick. On the eSata drive I made a classic installation. On the USB stick I used this procedure. I assume the same procedure can be applied to an external disk. When I get my hands on a spare SSD, I am going to try that in a USB3 enclosure - a HDD is probably too slow (like my USB2 stick).

The USB3 stick version is real fun and very fast. But you have to get a stick with appr. the same characteristics as the one I describe in my procedure - the access time of that stick is 0.5ms. Boot is 38 seconds and shutdown is 14 seconds. And the operation is very, very fluent.

I read through the procedure you wrote up a few days ago. I'm quite impressed. :cool:
If you don't mind me saying so, I doubt you'd notice much difference between a fast USB3 stick on a ditto port and a SSD on the same type of USB port.
The port (any MB port really) is bound to be the bottle neck anyhow even though the USB3 standard is finally becoming what it should have been from the onset.

Anyhow, should you or anyone else for that matter be interested in building W7 to go drives then just ring my bell and I'll try to dig up the procedure. It's similar to W8 to go which should come as no surprise.

@ Jimbo45: Sorry for the mix up. Guess I owe you a...beer? :p

Cheers guys, ;)
 

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Regarding Windows 7 on the stick I have not yet figured out how that would work with the product key. Even if you had a seperate key for the stick installation, how does this work if you carry that from system to sytem. Does anybody know. The same will be interesting once Win8 is on the market and the CP is no more operational.
 

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I think you will be buying the Enterprise Edition so you can use your beloved w8 on a stick.

The average buyer will not have access to that.
 

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I think you will be buying the Enterprise Edition so you can use your beloved w8 on a stick.

The average buyer will not have access to that.
Nah, that's too much money for that hobby - LOL.
 

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Hi everybody, this is my first post. Just want to share some what I know.

Can Windows 8 be installed on an external drive via a USB cable?
Yes, just like jimbo45 said:"That is EXACTLY what Windows 2 Go is all about -- plug it into any machine --".

Base on my test you can install wintogo on any partition external pata/sata HD and boot wintogo from internal HD also. It works fine on a lot of computers intel/AMD, but not all.
BIOS error rgd BCD, BSOD Oxc000000e on intel MB D865PERL, PLOP boot manager can not help, but Wintogo works fine as internal HD.

Boot in about 42 seconds USB v2.0 external sata HD.
150+ LiveUSB external HD Multiboot with grub4dos - YouTube
Nativeboot is still faster than wintogo
 

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Nativeboot is still faster than wintogo
That depends on the speed of the HDD. My USB3 stick boots in 38 seconds (Event 100 in Event viewer). Yes, on the SSD it is faster but a slow HDD may be slower.
 

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BSOD Oxc000000e

I was wondering in another thread how this can work since many people have troubles finding the right drivers themselves manually, even after the install is done in a normal desktop OS scenario.

I think MS is kinda sorta doing the wrong thing by making this available and supporting it. If they want to do that, they should include the latest driver of every single piece of known hardware in the world as part of the Windows 8 DVD. If they can't or won't do that, I don't see the advantages of this "to go" thing.

Even if it works as is for the majority, are they getting the best from their devices?

But thank you for sharing your results. I am sure it still will interest a large amount of people. And welcome!
 

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Now it makes more sense. Specifically:

"It is intended to allow enterprise administrators to provide users with an imaged version of Windows 8 that reflects the corporate desktop and as such is aimed at enterprises."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_To_Go

Perfect for all similar machines the image was made for. That is a good use.
 

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Now it makes more sense. Specifically:

"It is intended to allow enterprise administrators to provide users with an imaged version of Windows 8 that reflects the corporate desktop and as such is aimed at enterprises."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_To_Go

Perfect for all similar machines the image was made for. That is a good use.


Hi there
I disagree here -- In a large work environment using similar hardware there are enough fairly standard and relatively easy (fot those guys - not the average joe) to image a reference machine and deploy it on to their company desk / laptops.

Windows to Go IMO is FAR more useful for people like roving consultants who might be working all over the place -- the clients software might not have EXCEL or a really OLD version or other business type of software. In addition you could have it in YOUR OWN language too.

I've also posted a scenario where you can add a Virtual machine such as W2003 server to it as well under Hyper-V so you could when demoing stuff in a public place say an exhibition stall just allow people to logon to your virtual server to test the stuff. - Avoids security issues etc such as people accessing company VPN's etc.

To demo the stuff just clone the bits you need on to your Virtual server -- and you are good to go --using the public wifi system too -- no expensive infrastructure etc.

I think the LEAST useful feature of this will be in Corporate deployments -- in any case the product is called Windows to Go so I assume it means ON the MOVE.

Roving consultants should find this really useful -- I run it from a small external HDD and performance even with the virtual machine running on the HYPER-V is fine.

A decent SSD will be even better.

Just unplug when finished --- excellent idea Ms.


@ fdegrove == I see you might be in Belgium sometimes

I like "The Six Nations Pub" in Brussels in the Rue Getry just near the Grand Place and not far from the central station.

Often in there on "Footie" nights so if you want a Beer --
I'll probably be there for the Chelsea Barcelona Game(s). !!


Cheers
jimbo
 

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