Windows 8 To Go

[Ztruker]

Hot damn!!!

That worked. Followed Jimbo's diskpart steps:

1) connect stick or USB drive into the computer
2) run in Administrator mode the following commands -- assume the USB is DISK 4

DISKPART
LIST DISK you'll get a list of disks -- mine was DISK 4
SELECT DISK 4
CLEAN (This removes any previous MBR / other boot sector stuff plus wipes the HDD)
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
ACTIVE ====> very important or the HDD / Stick won't boot. !!
exit

Format fs=ntfs quick

exit

I had to then assign a drive letter via Disk Management. I used J:

Then I started GImagex and click the Apply tab/
Selected install.wim from my Win 8.1.1 Pro X64 that I had copied out before.
Selected J: which is my SanDisk Extreme flash drive.
Clicked Start.

A bit over 7 minutes later it was done.

Right click on J:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe and select Run as Administrator.
In the Elevated Command Prompt window enter:

bcdboot.exe J:\Windows /s J: /f ALL

exit

Leave the flash drive in and reboot. Selected Legacy mode as UEFI did not work.

Voilla`, here I am logged in from my Win 8.1.1 To Go flash drive and it runs darned good.

Only 2.86GB free on the 16GB flash drive but it works well.

Thank you all for your help and especially Jimbo. His advice was critical to me getting this working.

 

[Ztruker]

I wonder what I can delete from the flash drive to free up some space.

Now I get to play with this on my computers at the shop and see what happens.

This is way cool.

 

[SIW2]

LOL. We have been doing it with win7 for ages.

 

[Ztruker]

I used Linux live flash drives before but never Windows. I'm amazed how well it runs on a USB 3.0 port.

 

[SIW2]

Linux runs great from even a slow flash on usb2.0

Windows doesn't.

Looks like you have a good fast stick now. Seems the kingston flash was very slow.

I used Linux live flash drives before but never Windows. I'm amazed how well it runs on a USB 3.0 port.

 

[SIW2]

If you have more than one partition on a flash stick, Windows will only let you see the active one.

Linux can access them all.

If you are using Windows, you can flip the active flag with bootice, though you probably need to eject the stick then reinsert to see the change.