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#1
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
Hi,
I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! -- Cheers, Carlos. |
#2
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 10/07/2018 22:20, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? Did you change the boot order in BIOS? Bios has a setting to organize the boot order. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Windows Defender software. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/wind...nsive-security /--- This email has been checked for viruses by Windows Defender software. //https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/comprehensive-security/ -- With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows. |
#3
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 7/10/2018 2:20 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! Not clear what your "exact case" refers to. I've successfully used wintousb to create win7 bootable USB2 hard drives. There may be licensing/activation issues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc I never tried to boot from usb3, but I've read reports that it has issues. |
#4
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 2018-07-11 02:56, mike wrote:
On 7/10/2018 2:20 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote: Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! Not clear what your "exact case" refers to. I've successfully used wintousb to create win7 bootable USB2 hard drives.Â* There may be licensing/activation issues. I do not want to create a "win bootable USB2 hard drive". I want to boot the hard disk that came inside the computer with Windows installed, but connected outside instead. Simple. I do not have a running Windows which I can migrate to an empty hard disk on USB. I took the disk from inside and connected it outside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc I never tried to boot from usb3, but I've read reports that it has issues. As the disk starts to boot and shows the proper logo, that is not the issue. It doesn't need extra drivers. -- Cheers, Carlos. |
#5
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 7/11/2018 2:29 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-11 02:56, mike wrote: On 7/10/2018 2:20 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote: Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! Not clear what your "exact case" refers to. I've successfully used wintousb to create win7 bootable USB2 hard drives. There may be licensing/activation issues. I do not want to create a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc. I want to boot the hard disk that came inside the computer with Windows installed, but connected outside instead. Simple. Simple is not the word I'd use. Thought experiment... Take your SSD out of the laptop. Put it into an external enclosure. Does it boot your "other" OS? If you're unwilling to change anything on the hard disk, I think you're outaluck. Another thought experiment... Make a paper map. Plan a trip and mark the path on the map. Now, cut the map apart between source and destination. Tape it back together in a random way. Can you follow the map to your destination? I do not have a running Windows which I can migrate to an empty hard disk on USB. I took the disk from inside and connected it outside. I took the engine out of my car and duct taped it to the roof. Why won't my car go??? Based on your frequent participation in the newsgroups, I find it surprising that you don't have at least one disk you could use for the experiment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc I never tried to boot from usb3, but I've read reports that it has issues. As the disk starts to boot and shows the proper logo, that is not the issue. It doesn't need extra drivers. You have what you consider to be a superior "other" OS. Why would you even consider win10? If GRUB can't boot it, it probably can't be done without changing anything on the hard drive. |
#6
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 2018-07-11 12:42, mike wrote:
On 7/11/2018 2:29 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote: On 2018-07-11 02:56, mike wrote: On 7/10/2018 2:20 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote: Not clear what your "exact case" refers to. I've successfully used wintousb to create win7 bootable USB2 hard drives.Â* There may be licensing/activation issues. I do not want to create a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc. I want to boot the hard disk that came inside the computer with Windows installed, but connected outside instead. Simple. The above paragraph has been modified. I did not write: I do not want to create a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc. I wrote: I do not want to create a "win bootable USB2 hard drive". I want to boot Simple is not the word I'd use. Thought experiment... Take your SSD out of the laptop. Put it into an external enclosure. Does it boot your "other" OS? As a thought experiment, yes, I'm certain it would boot. I have not tried on this machine, but I have done it more than once on other machines. And if it hits a problem booting I know what to do to make it boot ;-) I have done that so many times with that other operating system that I thought that of course Windows would also boot without a problem, perhaps just ask for a repair confirmation. As to a real experiment, I do not want to open up this laptop and swap the hard disk again, there are too many screws and too delicate innards for my liking. At worst, I would get a new or borrowed external hard disk and try to install Windows there from zero, looking at your video or other similar instructions. If you're unwilling to change anything on the hard disk, I think you're outaluck. Another thought experiment... Make a paper map.Â* Plan a trip and mark the path on the map. Now, cut the map apart between source and destination. Tape it back together in a random way. Can you follow the map to your destination? I'm not sure I follow you, sorry. I do not have a running Windows which I can migrate to an empty hard disk on USB. I took the disk from inside and connected it outside. I took the engine out of my car and duct taped it to the roof. Why won't my car go??? Based on your frequent participation in the newsgroups, I find it surprising that you don't have at least one disk you could use for the experiment. Not of the 2.5 inch format suitable for this laptop and the USB3 enclosure. I have big or normal disks. However, that's indeed an idea I could try. Thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwKp8E2xIAc I never tried to boot from usb3, but I've read reports that it has issues. As the disk starts to boot and shows the proper logo, that is not the issue. It doesn't need extra drivers. You have what you consider to be a superior "other" OS. Why would you even consider win10? Ah, because I do use Windows now and then. I have a double boot laptop with it, and a virtual machine on my main desktop, and another one I'm about to install, plus older virtual machines with older versions. One W98 somewhere. A WinME on an older computer that I have not booted in years. If GRUB can't boot it, it probably can't be done without changing anything on the hard drive. Grub does boot it, but it aborts after a minute (I see some windows logo) and reboots from the internal disk instead with the "other" system ;-) There was a setting in grub 1 that was used to swap disks, to boot older windows versions installed on the second disk so they thought they were on the first disk. I must investigate and remember what this trick was. But W10 booted via UEFI should not need these tricks. -- Cheers, Carlos. |
#7
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
Carlos E.R. wrote:
As to a real experiment, I do not want to open up this laptop and swap the hard disk again, there are too many screws and too delicate innards for my liking. Some laptops, they offer for sale an adapter that replaces the optical drive bay, and you put an SSD or a thin hard drive in it. And that gives a two-drive laptop. Perhaps Lenovo products have it. Paul |
#8
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! Windows To Go is it. The mechanism might be intended for an Enterprise class customer, but the underlying mechanism is general enough for people to hack it to work on other SKUs. ******* Back in WinXP era, people succeeded in booting from a USB hard drive. The issue if the OS wasn't properly prepared, was that the USB bus is "commissioned" in the *middle* of the boot process. By adding some configuration information to WinXP in the form of "BootBusExtender" information, it was possible to tell WinXP to figure out the USB hard drive *before* the boot process gets rolling. The result then is no interruption of the connection to the USB hard drive, half way through the booting process. There was a five page long script to make that work. The USB boot procedure does not disable the Activation and License key issues in WinXP. You couldn't take your USB hard drive just any old place, and boot just any old machine. The license would be "Not Genuine" or whatever. ******* Windows To Go is purpose built for the job. So someone at Microsoft wanted it to work. In an Enterprise situation, perhaps it's easier to handle the license key issues (VLK???). For a home user, using whatever "Windows To Go" hack is available this week, the issue will still revolve around that license key and activation. And that's a topic you'll have to research if you plan on booting two PCs. In the Enterprise case, a business user is supposed to be able to carry a USB stick from PC to PC and use it. Your case will be a captive setup, plugged into one machine, as a "hardware extension". Maybe the licensing will work out. If you were Bill Gates and you had lots of money, it would go like this: 1) Use some Windows To Go hack, to put a clean OS on the USB stick. 2) Use Laplink Pro or Zemana??? to transfer the Programs and User Files from the existing image you want to use, to the WTG stick. Transfer software costs around $50+ *per OS* transferred. Ridiculous, but the claim is, it pays for tech support. (The guy who tells you it's not going to work.) I don't know if anyone has perfected a way to "convert" an existing image to a WTG image. That would likely be... complicated. I'm sure at some point, the image is SysPrepped, and how would you work around that ? Good luck and report back if a miracle happens :-) Paul |
#9
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 2018-07-11 04:24, Paul wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote: Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! Windows To Go is it. Can't. The procedure is designed to move existing and booting Windows on an internal disk to another disk outside. I do not have two disks, I only have one. And it doesn't boot, so I can not run anything on it. Can't install any software, unless using some rescue USB stick. I removed the disk from inside and connected it outside. -- Cheers, Carlos. |
#10
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
Carlos E.R. wrote:
Can't. The procedure is designed to move existing and booting Windows on an internal disk to another disk outside. I do not have two disks, I only have one. And it doesn't boot, so I can not run anything on it. Can't install any software, unless using some rescue USB stick. I removed the disk from inside and connected it outside. You would probably be disappointed anyway. I took the first Windows To Go third-party program that showed up in a search, and tested it. It was a disaster. An "insult to programming". It used a WinPE, to try and boot and do a sector-by-sector copy. Which is ridiculous, when about 20 different backup/restore programs can do this "online" with VSS. When the WinPE booted, it would black screen. The developer was selling this product, too. As well as offering a free version. I wonder if anyone actually bought a copy... I'm still trying to clean up the mess from the experiment (nothing is damaged as such, but I have rules about cleanup). Oh, well. Paul |
#11
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-11 04:24, Paul wrote: [...] Windows To Go is it. Can't. The procedure is designed to move existing and booting Windows on an internal disk to another disk outside. I do not have two disks, I only have one. And it doesn't boot, so I can not run anything on it. Can't install any software, unless using some rescue USB stick. I removed the disk from inside and connected it outside. If you're willing to - temporarily - swap the disks back, or you can temporarily use some other Windows system, you could download the Windows 10 software and make bootable USB memory-stick or DVD Windows 10 Install media. 'Download Windows 10' https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 |
#12
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 2018-07-11 15:55, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote: On 2018-07-11 04:24, Paul wrote: [...] Windows To Go is it. Can't. The procedure is designed to move existing and booting Windows on an internal disk to another disk outside. I do not have two disks, I only have one. And it doesn't boot, so I can not run anything on it. Can't install any software, unless using some rescue USB stick. I removed the disk from inside and connected it outside. If you're willing to - temporarily - swap the disks back, or you can temporarily use some other Windows system, you could download the Windows 10 software and make bootable USB memory-stick or DVD Windows 10 Install media. 'Download Windows 10' https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Yes, I can download on another computer an ISO bootable image to install windows. I did that recently to install a virtual machine on anoter computer. What do you suggest, that I install Windows from scratch on another external disk instead of using the original disk that was inside the laptop? -- Cheers, Carlos. |
#13
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-11 15:55, Frank Slootweg wrote: Carlos E.R. wrote: On 2018-07-11 04:24, Paul wrote: [...] Windows To Go is it. Can't. The procedure is designed to move existing and booting Windows on an internal disk to another disk outside. I do not have two disks, I only have one. And it doesn't boot, so I can not run anything on it. Can't install any software, unless using some rescue USB stick. I removed the disk from inside and connected it outside. If you're willing to - temporarily - swap the disks back, or you can temporarily use some other Windows system, you could download the Windows 10 software and make bootable USB memory-stick or DVD Windows 10 Install media. 'Download Windows 10' https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Yes, I can download on another computer an ISO bootable image to install windows. I did that recently to install a virtual machine on anoter computer. What do you suggest, that I install Windows from scratch on another external disk instead of using the original disk that was inside the laptop? If you have another external disk (or buy one, they're quite cheap these days), then it's preferred to install Windows from scratch on that drive. However I got the impression that you don't particulary value what's on the original disk that was inside the laptop. If that is true, you could install Windows from scratch on the original disk. OTOH, I see that in the meantime you have some more luck at least getting some messages from the original disk, so it's probably best not to overwrite it yet. Good luck! |
#14
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 7/10/2018 at 4:20:42 PM Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! I found this posting which might explain why you cannot do it: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2942314/booting-win-external-hdd.html -- tb |
#15
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I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.
On 2018-07-11 16:06, tb wrote:
On 7/10/2018 at 4:20:42 PM Carlos E.R. wrote: Hi, I bought a Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR. It came with an internal 500GB rotating rust hard disk. I played with it a few days, let its 2 year Windows 10 update itself, then removed the hard disk, installed an SSD instead (smaller), on which I installed another operating system. I placed the original hard disk (that has the original W10 inside) in an external USB3 enclosure and tried to boot it. It does start to boot, then suddenly aborts and boots the internal disk instead (with another OS). Is there something that can be done to boot Windows from the external drive? I found info on how to install Windows 10 on an external drive, but that is not my exact case: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3185777/windows/how-to-install-windows-on-an-external-drive.html How to install Windows on an external drive https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ Best Free Windows To Go Creator to create portable Windows 10/8.1/8/7! I found this posting which might explain why you cannot do it: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2942314/booting-win-external-hdd.html Yes, the gist of this post, which I have found elsewhere, is that Windows refuses to boot from external media intentionally, because then that would allow the disk to be moved from computer to computer. Well, this is possible, but I would expect an error message of some sort, ideally "booting from external media is not allowed". Instead it simply aborts the boot silently and boots the internal disk inside, which leads me to believe that what boots is the small windows boot partition which then should boot the main system windows partition but mistakenly points to the internal disk. I was hoping about some configuration being possible to change. Windows could also check, while starting to boot, that the computer is indeed the same original hardware, somehow, and allow it. Supposedly there is a motherboard serial number or a bios serial number that can be used for the purpose. It seems that "windows on the go" bypasses this limitation, but works by migrating a working Windows to an external disk, thus needing two disks, the original and the new copy. So no useful to my case. I know there is an EFI partition, SYSTEM_DRV, just 260 MB in size. Then a reserved one of 16 MB. Then comes the Windows main partition, 426 GB. Then 4 small ones that must be the recovery and perhaps testing. Sigh... I may try installing it fresh on another disk, see how it goes. -- Cheers, Carlos. |
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