win7 full installation to external USB drive: possible?

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 16:04:22 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 02:44:11 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...

On Sun, 7 Sep 2014 09:43:36 +0000 (UTC), asdf wrote:

Mike Barnes wrote:

Have you considered eSATA instead of USB3?

To be honest I did not, but I don't think many notebooks support it, at
least not within an affordable price range.

It used to be pretty common and not expensive.

What I have mostly seen is a hybrid jack combining a USB2 port and an
eSATA port. Pretty weird.

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/te...sb-hybrid-port

As you can see the port also provides 12V power to the disk drive.

I'm not at all clear what e-sata is all about other than I believe it
allows hot plugging. I'm curious now because I finally have a
motherboard with an E-sata port on it. So questions.

Does the hard disk itself have to be specified e-sata or can a
"regular" sata drive work? Does it use it's own style cables, power
supply and data or are they basically sata cables?

eSATA means "external SATA", and at bottom, it's just a way of
connecting a SATA drive that is external, that is, outside the computer.

But since it *is* a SATA connection, that drive is equivalent to a drive
that is internally connected. Therefore you can boot from an eSATA drive
without having to open the computer to install a drive inside.

That is a great advantage for a laptop, but it's nice for a desktop too.

I have eSATA ports on my computer, but I find USB3 comparably fast and
more convenient, so I don't use eSATA. OTOH, I don't have to boot from
an external hard drive - but by golly, it is ready when needed.

The connector at the computer end is different from the internal ones,
and at least in my desktop, it lacks the power terminal shown in the
link - but there's a separate terminal for a normal SATA power lead.

I asked because a new to me Dell has an Esata port on the motherboard
and I assume it's not too hard to find the cable to make that externally
accessible.

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

It's not an assumption, it's what I said.

As you might have noticed, I'm not always right, but this is an
exception :-)

Also, it's easy for you to verify it.

There is at least one caveat, however. You must find out how to connect
the power to the drive in your setup, and be sure you have the right
cable for that in addition to the signal cable. Power is the wider
connector.

I have a docking station which has an eSATA connection. The power is
taken care of by the dock, which has its own power supply, but I have
also just connected a drive to the signal and power cables that I can
connect directly to the desktop's ports.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

and it's "it's" not "is's"

I understood and sorry for wrong words to "bare bones".

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 19:32:57 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

and it's "it's" not "is's"

LOL!

Your right, is is.

(My two new errors are just for fun. And I really did laugh out loud...)

I understood and sorry for wrong words to "bare bones".

No problem, I just wanted to make sure.

I'd rather insult your intelligence than mislead you, I guess :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:46:30 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.


Are you correcting yourself? g

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 19:32:57 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

and it's "it's" not "is's"

LOL!

Your right, is is.

(My two new errors are just for fun. And I really did laugh out loud...)

I understood and sorry for wrong words to "bare bones".

No problem, I just wanted to make sure.

I'd rather insult your intelligence than mislead you, I guess :-)

I'm now under understanding though that the connector on the motherboard
only supplies the "data" lines and not the power. I assume the "plate"
one uses to extend the port to the outside back of case has a second
connector attaches to an internal power lead so the "plate" has both a
data and a power connection?

pjp wrote:
In article , not-
lid says...
On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 19:32:57 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...
On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?
I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.
and it's "it's" not "is's"
LOL!

Your right, is is.

(My two new errors are just for fun. And I really did laugh out loud...)

I understood and sorry for wrong words to "bare bones".
No problem, I just wanted to make sure.

I'd rather insult your intelligence than mislead you, I guess :-)

I'm now under understanding though that the connector on the motherboard
only supplies the "data" lines and not the power. I assume the "plate"
one uses to extend the port to the outside back of case has a second
connector attaches to an internal power lead so the "plate" has both a
data and a power connection?

This is an example of a "laptop" EUHP slot plate. The USB3 header
used, is the source of +5V power on the EUHP.

http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_8297...setLanguage=en

http://www.delock.de/files/15984.download

This one is a "desktop" EUHP slot plate.

http://lidertronica.com/catalog/popu...b2ee083b559e19

The user manual for that one shows both a 2.5" and a 3.5" drive
connected, which is comforting. No smoke is shown in the picture,
so it must be connected right...

http://www.lindy.de/$WS/ld0101/websale8_shop-ld0101/produkte/medien/manuals/70534v0.pdf

*******

It didn't start to make some sense, until reading the tutorial page here.

http://www.addonics.com/technologies/euhp.php

"As of today, SATA-IO organization has not finalized
the Power Over eSATA standard." Really, no ****.
Who is driving the bus ?

So I get:

SATA 7 pins, internal, TX pair, RX pair, three GND pins
ESATA 7 pins, external, different keying arrangement for connectors.
ESATAp??? An ESATA with P12 and P13 ???
EUHP_desktop P12 and P13 present and wired to +12V. ESATA and USB.
EUHP_laptop P12 and P13 missing, ESATA and USB,
+5V to 2.5" drive via USB contact
Not clear if EUHP has USB3 contacts (another five contact)

But I might be missing a few flavors. I threw in the middle one,
because I believe there were "ESATA with power ears" before the
hybrid idea came out. The Addonics page also doesn't
make proper note of the existence of VBUS and VBUS2, because
some instances in their table have both voltages present.

So the very top plate (delock.de), must be missing P12 and P13.
And the reason for using the USB3 connector, was to get 900mA from
the USB3 header power pins. Of the nine pins on the USB3, only the
USB2 data pins are connected to their EUHP.

If the EUHP connector was "deeper", it might be possible
to put the USB3 contacts back there. But the linde.de datasheet doesn't
show such a thing, so I assume that isn't in the "industry non-standard".
For example. the EUHP could have

7 pins SATA
9 pins USB3 (4 front row, 5 back row)
P12 and P13 (if +12V available, two connector versions)

The Wikipedia article is a confused mess. I don't think
this is really up to date. And neither am I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATAp

So yes, there are adapter plates. And Chinese caveat emptor etc...

The standards body seems to be asleep. Only
reference I can find, is a "new initiative" in 2008.

https://www.sata-io.org/esata
https://www.sata-io.org/system/files..._FINAL_001.pdf

And this is why, "when you **** doesn't work, I can't help you" :-)

Still very confused,
Paul

Paul wrote:
The user manual for that one shows both a 2.5" and a 3.5" drive
connected, which is comforting. No smoke is shown in the picture,
so it must be connected right...

http://www.lindy.de/$WS/ld0101/websale8_shop-ld0101/produkte/medien/manuals/70534v0.pdf


Hi, Paul
I was wondering (since I know little about eSATA spec/requirements) if
you could elaborate on these two items in the above/referenced user manual
qp
2. If your motherboard is equipped with internal eSATA ports as well as
standard SATA ports, please
use the eSATA ports. eSATA ports can supply a more stable and powerful
signal allowing longer
maximum cable lengths of up to 2m.

vs.

Please note:
The maximum cable length for standard SATA cable connections according
to the SATA specification
is 1m! Therefore, the total length of the internal connection cable from
the motherboard SATA port to
the SATA port on the eSATAp adapter plus the external connection to the
HDD must not exceed one
metre!
/qp

Does this mean that eSATA is capable of 2m while eSATAp only 1m ?


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

.. . .winston wrote:
Paul wrote:
The user manual for that one shows both a 2.5" and a 3.5" drive
connected, which is comforting. No smoke is shown in the picture,
so it must be connected right...

http://www.lindy.de/$WS/ld0101/websale8_shop-ld0101/produkte/medien/manuals/70534v0.pdf



Hi, Paul
I was wondering (since I know little about eSATA spec/requirements) if
you could elaborate on these two items in the above/referenced user manual
qp
2. If your motherboard is equipped with internal eSATA ports as well as
standard SATA ports, please
use the eSATA ports. eSATA ports can supply a more stable and powerful
signal allowing longer
maximum cable lengths of up to 2m.

vs.

Please note:
The maximum cable length for standard SATA cable connections according
to the SATA specification
is 1m! Therefore, the total length of the internal connection cable from
the motherboard SATA port to
the SATA port on the eSATAp adapter plus the external connection to the
HDD must not exceed one
metre!
/qp

Does this mean that eSATA is capable of 2m while eSATAp only 1m ?



The standards define ESATA and SATA electrical levels. Logically,
the devices are equivalent. The OS won't know, for example, that
the C: drive is sitting outside the computer case. The BIOS, even
if the word "ESATA" was printed on the screen, it likely would not
lead to some register bit being adjusted at all.

The ESATA has a larger difference between launched signal amplitude
and receiver sensitivity, intended to support a longer cable.

I know of no easy way, to verify the exact electrical conditions.
The only available datasheet I could find, suggests the silicon
always runs in ESATA mode. Even for internal drives.

But not all silicon is created equal. Something Silicon Image makes,
may behave differently than Intel. Maybe they are more explicit about
ESATA support.

If you don't know anything about the hardware, then use a 1 meter cable.
If you do know both ends of the hardware are suited to ESATA, you can use
up to a 2 meter cable. The cable length, includes any "jumper cable" inside
the computer housing. Depending on whether you're using an adapter plate
or an ESATA plugin card. If you use an ESATA plugin PCI Express card,
then the jumper cable length is "zero" (a few inches of FR4 PCB material
at most).

ESATA, ESATAp, EUHP flavor of the week, all will be using ESATA
signal budget. If the silicon makers were smart, they'd just put
ESATA electrical levels on everything.

*******

SAS is similar to SATA/ESATA, but supports longer cabling.
One reason for this, is equalization of the line. Long cables
have frequency dependent loss. SAS has a provision for dynamically
adjusting (crudely) the response to signals, and attempting
to detect the difference between a long and a short cable.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272147

SATA has nothing like that. SATA was kept simple, and that
was likely a good thing.

Paul

In article , says...

pjp wrote:
In article , not-
lid says...
On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 19:32:57 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...
On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?
I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.
and it's "it's" not "is's"
LOL!

Your right, is is.

(My two new errors are just for fun. And I really did laugh out loud...)

I understood and sorry for wrong words to "bare bones".
No problem, I just wanted to make sure.

I'd rather insult your intelligence than mislead you, I guess :-)

I'm now under understanding though that the connector on the motherboard
only supplies the "data" lines and not the power. I assume the "plate"
one uses to extend the port to the outside back of case has a second
connector attaches to an internal power lead so the "plate" has both a
data and a power connection?

This is an example of a "laptop" EUHP slot plate. The USB3 header
used, is the source of +5V power on the EUHP.

http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_8297...setLanguage=en

http://www.delock.de/files/15984.download

This one is a "desktop" EUHP slot plate.

http://lidertronica.com/catalog/popu...b2ee083b559e19

Ok, think I have enough to go shopping.

As the eSata port (clearly labelled differently than the Sata ports) on
the motherboard looks slightly physically different than the usb ports I
assume it provides all the power requirements (Dell's owner manual isn't
very helpfull), e.g. both 12 & 5 volts. I therefore suspect all I really
need is more or less an extender cable to get it outside the case and it
provides both the power and data leads as one connector to attach to the
hard disk itself.

Can't be too expensive for a cable so comes down to can I find one
locally or have to chance ordering it online in Canada. That said, I'd
rather get some extender "plate" so cable isn't dangling out some hole
in the case and then use a second cable from drive to hard disk.

So couple of options.

I'm looking into this because I like the idea of being able to boot
directly into XP from a small sata drive I have laying around doing
nothing. That way I could run XP when required using all the pc rather
than right now where I use a VM instead (runs well but slower than I'd
like). That way, no dual boot and the other hassles, just insure all
drives are NTFS.

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 23:46:56 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 19:32:57 -0300, pjp wrote:

In article , not-
lid says...

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

and it's "it's" not "is's"

LOL!

Your right, is is.

(My two new errors are just for fun. And I really did laugh out loud...)

I understood and sorry for wrong words to "bare bones".

No problem, I just wanted to make sure.

I'd rather insult your intelligence than mislead you, I guess :-)

I'm now under understanding though that the connector on the motherboard
only supplies the "data" lines and not the power. I assume the "plate"
one uses to extend the port to the outside back of case has a second
connector attaches to an internal power lead so the "plate" has both a
data and a power connection?

That's exactly the way it works here.

In my case, that backplate has two eSATA plugs & the power connection on
the backplate is a Molex connector. The cable that goes into it is a Y
with two SATA power leads.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 20:20:23 -0300, pjp wrote:

As the eSata port (clearly labelled differently than the Sata ports) on
the motherboard looks slightly physically different than the usb ports I
assume it provides all the power requirements (Dell's owner manual isn't
very helpfull), e.g. both 12 & 5 volts. I therefore suspect all I really
need is more or less an extender cable to get it outside the case and it
provides both the power and data leads as one connector to attach to the
hard disk itself.

I don't expect the eSATA to have power leads...it might be necessary to
peer at them with a loupe or find some better documentation...

With any luck, you'll find out that I'm wrong.

BTW, my (not that new anymore) MB has only SATA connectors. The eSATA
ones are provided by the backplate I put in.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Mon, 08 Sep 2014 17:42:05 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:46:30 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

Are you correcting yourself? g

Nah, just quoting badly :-)

Again...

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 16:38:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Mon, 08 Sep 2014 17:42:05 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:46:30 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Mon, 8 Sep 2014 12:43:02 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

So it seems Windows will see a drive on an Esata port in same way it
sees an internal hard disk? If so it means can install various versions
of Windows on portable drives and just boot with one you want?
Reasonable assumption?

I just noticed that you said "portable drives".

Oops. Not portable drives with their own USB interfaces, just *standard
SATA drives*, bare drives.

I'll repeat that: *bare SATA drives*.

BTW, is's eSATA, not Esata.

Are you correcting yourself? g

Nah, just quoting badly :-)


I knew g

Ken

Paul wrote:
. . .winston wrote:
Paul wrote:
The user manual for that one shows both a 2.5" and a 3.5" drive
connected, which is comforting. No smoke is shown in the picture,
so it must be connected right...

http://www.lindy.de/$WS/ld0101/websale8_shop-ld0101/produkte/medien/manuals/70534v0.pdf



Hi, Paul
I was wondering (since I know little about eSATA spec/requirements) if
you could elaborate on these two items in the above/referenced user
manual
qp
2. If your motherboard is equipped with internal eSATA ports as well
as standard SATA ports, please
use the eSATA ports. eSATA ports can supply a more stable and powerful
signal allowing longer
maximum cable lengths of up to 2m.

vs.

Please note:
The maximum cable length for standard SATA cable connections according
to the SATA specification
is 1m! Therefore, the total length of the internal connection cable
from the motherboard SATA port to
the SATA port on the eSATAp adapter plus the external connection to
the HDD must not exceed one
metre!
/qp

Does this mean that eSATA is capable of 2m while eSATAp only 1m ?



The standards define ESATA and SATA electrical levels. Logically,
the devices are equivalent. The OS won't know, for example, that
the C: drive is sitting outside the computer case. The BIOS, even
if the word "ESATA" was printed on the screen, it likely would not
lead to some register bit being adjusted at all.

The ESATA has a larger difference between launched signal amplitude
and receiver sensitivity, intended to support a longer cable.

I know of no easy way, to verify the exact electrical conditions.
The only available datasheet I could find, suggests the silicon
always runs in ESATA mode. Even for internal drives.

But not all silicon is created equal. Something Silicon Image makes,
may behave differently than Intel. Maybe they are more explicit about
ESATA support.

If you don't know anything about the hardware, then use a 1 meter cable.
If you do know both ends of the hardware are suited to ESATA, you can use
up to a 2 meter cable. The cable length, includes any "jumper cable" inside
the computer housing. Depending on whether you're using an adapter plate
or an ESATA plugin card. If you use an ESATA plugin PCI Express card,
then the jumper cable length is "zero" (a few inches of FR4 PCB material
at most).

ESATA, ESATAp, EUHP flavor of the week, all will be using ESATA
signal budget. If the silicon makers were smart, they'd just put
ESATA electrical levels on everything.

*******

SAS is similar to SATA/ESATA, but supports longer cabling.
One reason for this, is equalization of the line. Long cables
have frequency dependent loss. SAS has a provision for dynamically
adjusting (crudely) the response to signals, and attempting
to detect the difference between a long and a short cable.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272147

SATA has nothing like that. SATA was kept simple, and that
was likely a good thing.

Paul

Thanks.

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps