Hardware·18,975 discussions

Install Vista on a external harddrive

Locked

Hi

I have a HP Personal Media drive , 160 GB NFTS system, and I plug it into my pc via USB 2.0 .
Now I want to install Vista business on it.
Will there be a problem? Does Vista support installs on external harddrives?

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to Install Vista on a external harddrive

Clarifications

It can be done, but you might regret it

In reply to Install Vista on a external harddrive

Greg Shultz posted the following Feb’07 at TR:

http://i.t.com.com/i/tr/downloads/home/gshultz_dual-booting_windows_vista.pdf

Greg recommended separate internal HDs or a partitioned HD for 2 operating systems. I followed his recommendations using a single partitioned HD with XP MCE on ‘C’ partition and Vista Home Premium on ‘D’ partition.

Windows displays a boot screen, and you can edit the ‘default’ OS, as well as the duration of the boot screen display.

After installing SP1 on Vista, I could no longer boot with Vista. Upon reinstalling Vista into ‘D’ partition, it booted OK. Perhaps this was a glitch with SP1 (which had plenty of ‘issues’) that is now resolved. Beware.

While in Vista, I downloaded and installed Microsoft posted patches. These corrupted XP in the ‘C’ partition. Apparently there is a way to isolate the downloads to prevent cross-partition installation, but this is beyond the scope of your query.

In summary, I advise against it. However, if you are determined to try it, I recommend that you read ‘Using Windows XP Professional’ (Que Publishing, 3rd ed. 2005), ch. 3 (Installing Windows XP Professional), pp. 81-86 (Dual Booting); also ch. 31 (Multibooting Windows XP with Other Operating Systems), pp. 1207-1244. ISBN 0-7897-3280-7

Rick/Portland, OR

[Author]

Replies