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booting windows from an external hdd

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by licksboxalot

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i have a hdd with a working version of windows xp on it i bought an enclosure to make it into an external hdd. i want to boot windows from the external hdd but when i try even after changing the bios to boot from the external hdd i get a boot error. however i can take the hdd out of the enclosure and put it in the computer and it boots fine. any help would be greatly appreciated

3 replies

by older mycroft

Whether or not you can achieve success booting from the external disk, THAT disk will be a source of unending problems.

For one thing it will in serious danger of corrupting due to having overheated. External cases are not renowned for their heat-dissipation capabilities. Also, this external drive casing, which will now be housing your Primary Drive (where the majority of drive accesses will be taking place, will now be exposed to ANY vibrations that might happen around it - even someone just walking past heavily.

I suspect your main problem is that you have allocated a drive letter in excess of 'C'.

All PCs look to the 'C' drive for Boot Details held in the Boot Sector of the disk. If you installed to this Disk while it was a Secondary drive to another System Disk, it'll be missing the Boot Sector.

Depends on whether there is another Disk inside when this one gets refitted for a resultant successful boot.

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