Windows To Go in Windows 8 Pro

I have never set this up however for the past few days my PC claims it is running in Windows To Go mode. If I remove all external USB devices and reboot my PC it does not help. If I try to change this in Windows settings or do almost anything lately it claims "This feature is not available in a portable workstation environment." I don't really care at this point why my computer thinks it is in this mode I'd only like to know what (folder, file type etc) my PC is using to boot this way so I can delete it and boot in normal mode once again. Thank you for any help with this matter.

Install any drivers lately? It sounds like ,for some reason, Windows thinks your hard drive is a removable device. Where did you get your copy of Windows 8 Pro and how did you install it? Windows to go is only "supposed" to be an option with Windows 8 Enterprise.

No drivers were updated since the error. The first known error occurred when I safely removed hardware (500 GB Seagate) which I had been using to download programs to since I had been facing multiple re-installs of Windows 8. At no point did this have any windows files on it but it did freeze my PC once ejected. The next reboot gave me the first error message not to remove storage devices while in a virtual mode.

As for Windows Pro it was purchased and downloaded from the Microsoft site. Something that is verified to be genuine since I already went through tech support as previous drivers were destroying the MBR's of multiple Hard Drives. Not to mention several weeks worth of randomly generated blue screens. I'm still trying to figure out how I ran Windows 8 beta for about a year on two machines flawlessly and now can't seem to enjoy a single day using my PC after installing Windows 8 Pro three weeks ago.

I did find one Windows 8 site that claimed Windows To Go should be running off of (or made from) a .wim file but a search of both .wim and *.wim resulted in no such file existing on my machine.

OK, Windows to Go is officially only an option with windows 8 Enterprise. It actually has the utility built in to create the Windows To Go install to an external drive. The wim file used is I believe on the install media. It's on the Windows 8 DVD. To do it in Windows 8 Pro you have to cheat and follow another procedure. How did you do your original install, upgrade or clean install? If you are having a lot of other problems you may want to consider starting over and doing this. http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13375-clean-install-windows-8-upgrade.html?filter or this, http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html?filter depending on what your install media is. Other options are doing a Refresh or Reset.

Windows 2go can be made with any Windows 8 I think.

The automated procedure in W8 Enterprise creates 2 partitions on special USB drives (which report to be fixed).
Not really necessary.

There are other characteristics for W82go:
local hard drives are unaccessible (forbidden), no recovery environment.

If all settings are present Windows 8 could "think" it is a W82go.

You can make a Windows to go like install with any media manually, but the true Windows To Go is only available with Windows 8 Enterprise. Also the Windows To Go control panel utility will not let you make a Windows 8 to go install from Windows 8 or 8 Pro, it has to be an 8 Enterprise wim file or it won't use it. Trust me ,been there, tried it. I also noticed what you said about the local drive being MIA and not accessible. It's that way by design to prevent you from mucking up the preinstalled OS on the PC. It's not meant for doing a repair or recovery. I'm not sure what's going on with the OP's PC. It's likely not a Windows To Go install but for some reason the OS thinks its running from removable media or maybe running in a virtual PC or something? Need more info to actually figure it out. A screen shoot of the expanded disk management screen might help.

alphanumeric said:

I also noticed what you said about the local drive being MIA and not accessible. It's that way by design to prevent you from mucking up the preinstalled OS on the PC.

Click to expand...

This is achieved by setting SAN policy to 4.
I hope it can be changed, so you can make an Enterprise Win8-2go to access local drives.

Nothing can forbid you attaching a recovery wim if it is not there.

I've only played with a Windows To Go setup for a very short time. I set it up from an enterprise trial just for a look see and to play around with. I eventually lost interest and repurposed that drive for something else. It was only a trial anyway. I have an MsDart thumb drive for recovery and repair anyway. The OP has been quite for a while now, maybe he's doing a reinstall or something.

On my desktop i can enable hot-swap in the BIOS for my internal drives. Maybe that's the problem?