I'd like to boot Windows from an external drive.

On Wed, 11 Jul 2018 20:13:23 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Lucifer Morningstar wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2018 23:20:42 +0200, "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?

It sounds like there is an internal reference to the C: drive.
Is it possible to make the external drive C:?

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus


If you use Disk Management, it has labels such
as "System", "Boot", "Active" which are more important
in terms of declaring the role a partition has during
the current boot cycle.

The drive letter "C:" is in effect, proof of your
credentials as a Windows Administrator. DO you have the
right stuff ? If the drive letter is "D:", you'll never
get your CERTS.

So making the external drive C: would not work?
Could he make the external drive system?


And you can turn off that Avast advertising material,
if you put your mind to it. That's not actually a
signature, and isn't implemented as such. It's a setting
in Avast.

Sorry about that. I didn't know it was there.
Hopefully its not there now.

Paul

Lucifer Morningstar wrote:


So making the external drive C: would not work?
Could he make the external drive system?

When Windows is booting from USB bus, there will be
times when it sends a bus RESET to USB, to make
say a mouse work, or some other USB thing work.
And when it does that, it interrupts the flow
of boot data for the OS, and the OS stops in its
tracks.

The old hack was called BootBusExtender, and if USB
was added to that set of busses, the USB booting
would no longer get interrupted part way through.

What that has to do with Windows To Go, I haven't a clue.

Paul

On 2018-07-11 16:55, default wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2018 23:20:42 +0200, "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've done that with earlier versions of Windows, but using an ESATA
drive not a USB drive.

But does the BIOS allow you to change the boot order to the USB
instead of the HDD? I'd try that first.... No experience with the
Yoga so I can't say what you can or cannot do in BIOS.

It certainly does. I have booted from other usb media. And this
particular disk does start to boot, shows the logo, and after a minute
aborts and boots the internal disk instead.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

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.

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.

On 7/11/2018 9:19 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-11 16:55, default wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2018 23:20:42 +0200, "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've done that with earlier versions of Windows, but using an ESATA
drive not a USB drive.

But does the BIOS allow you to change the boot order to the USB
instead of the HDD? I'd try that first.... No experience with the
Yoga so I can't say what you can or cannot do in BIOS.

It certainly does. I have booted from other usb media. And this
particular disk does start to boot, shows the logo, and after a minute
aborts and boots the internal disk instead.

I doubt this is your problem but check the motherboard settings and if
it offers a legacy boot option. If it is off try turning it on.

I suspect the real problem is with Windows on the "USB3" drive starting
the boot using the motherboard USB3 drivers and when it gets around to
installing the actual Windows USB3 drivers the install gets interrupted
and aborts, causing the system to look for another source to try booting
from. I believe this is something Paul has mentioned already.

Have you tried plugging the USB drive into a USB2 port? The USB3 drive
adapters normally will work on a USB2 port, just a little slower.

Carlos E.R. wrote:
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.

If we could find an article that explains the "essence"
of what makes it work, this project would be a lot
easier.

I have no reference materials to judge any procedure
as being actual Windows To Go, or something else.

There is, after all, a "VHD boot" procedure, which
uses an OS-sized file with .vhd extension. But when
I added the info needed to the BCD, the damn thing
went into a loop at boot time, and never finished.
The screen kept flashing. So much for VHD boot.
Windows To Go is not VHD boot.

Paul

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.

On 2018-07-12 05:29, GlowingBlueMist wrote:
On 7/11/2018 9:19 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-11 16:55, default wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2018 23:20:42 +0200, "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've done that with earlier versions of Windows, but using an ESATA
drive not a USB drive.

But does the BIOS allow you to change the boot order to the USB
instead of the HDD?Â* I'd try that first....Â* No experience with the
Yoga so I can't say what you can or cannot do in BIOS.

It certainly does. I have booted from other usb media. And this
particular disk does start to boot, shows the logo, and after a minute
aborts and boots the internal disk instead.

I doubt this is your problem but check the motherboard settings and if
it offers a legacy boot option.Â* If it is off try turning it on.

I suspect the real problem is with Windows on the "USB3" drive starting
the boot using the motherboard USB3 drivers and when it gets around to
installing the actual Windows USB3 drivers the install gets interrupted
and aborts, causing the system to look for another source to try booting
from.Â* I believe this is something Paul has mentioned already.

Have you tried plugging the USB drive into a USB2 port?Â* The USB3 drive
adapters normally will work on a USB2 port, just a little slower.

That's an idea. I'll try that, thanks.



--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2018-07-12 05:52, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-12 05:29, GlowingBlueMist wrote:


Have you tried plugging the USB drive into a USB2 port?Â* The USB3 drive
adapters normally will work on a USB2 port, just a little slower.

That's an idea. I'll try that, thanks.

You were absolutely right! It tries to boot, and I get to an offer of
repair options. I choose to try boot Win 10, says preparing automatic
repair, but after a minute goes back to the same place:

continue (booting W10) power off

use recovery media

solve problems.

After two cycles, I selected the later.
It fails to diagnose.
It writes a log somewhere which I'll have to read from somewhere else,
and offers "advanced" or power off. Advanced goes back to square one.

Well, it is a fair advance, yes.

The log file is "\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt". It seems
to logs some tests with error code 0x0, and finally says "hard disk not
found".

Seems that Windows is hardcoded to use the internal disk, does not allow
"movement". If that is so, I would have to install it fresh on another
external enclosure.



I'll see tomorrow, I have to sleep ;-)


--
Cheers, Carlos.

Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-12 05:52, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-12 05:29, GlowingBlueMist wrote:


Have you tried plugging the USB drive into a USB2 port? The USB3 drive
adapters normally will work on a USB2 port, just a little slower.
That's an idea. I'll try that, thanks.

You were absolutely right! It tries to boot, and I get to an offer of
repair options. I choose to try boot Win 10, says preparing automatic
repair, but after a minute goes back to the same place:

continue (booting W10) power off

use recovery media

solve problems.

After two cycles, I selected the later.
It fails to diagnose.
It writes a log somewhere which I'll have to read from somewhere else,
and offers "advanced" or power off. Advanced goes back to square one.

Well, it is a fair advance, yes.

The log file is "\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt". It seems
to logs some tests with error code 0x0, and finally says "hard disk not
found".

Seems that Windows is hardcoded to use the internal disk, does not allow
"movement". If that is so, I would have to install it fresh on another
external enclosure.



I'll see tomorrow, I have to sleep ;-)

Yeah, I'm getting "Inaccessible boot volume" here too.

There are two possible cases:

1) Immediate failure, due to the driver not being
in the Start=0 state. I tried re-arming both usbstor
and uaspstor, and it didn't help. They don't even seem
to be behaving normally either - they don't snap
back to Start=3 on their own.

2) The BootBusExtender issue. Maybe the thing was able
to read part-way through C: until the USB bus used
RESET to commission other devices. And that is stopping
the read of the boot data.

I'm guessing mine is (1) at the moment, but I have
no proof or evidence.

My "System", "Boot", and "Active" are all on the
same partition, so I don't have to modify that.
And I tried the

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

as C: is the letter my partition uses while
I use Command Prompt window available on an installer
DVD. And if I later do

bcdedit

to dump the BCD info, it really doesn't look any
different than when the thing boots off a SATA port.

If I move the drive back to the SATA port, it will
recover on its own. "Just hit Enter".

And the two boot repair methods I've tried so far,
give that "I'm not designed to fix this" look when
I try to fix the external USB drive. So there won't
be an easy-peasy escape for Houdini.

One reason I'm not interested in testing any more
"fork lift" style Windows To Go methods, is there
are just too many variables that could go wrong.
A roulette wheel with long odds.

Paul

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

On 2018-07-12 08:24, Paul wrote:
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.

This laptop is tiny, no optical drive. I intend it for travelling, not
serious use, so weight and size are important. Power is secondary ;-)

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 07/11/2018 05:59 PM, Lucifer Morningstar wrote:

[snip]

It sounds like there is an internal reference to the C: drive.
Is it possible to make the external drive C:?

Drive letter is NOT a property of the hardware, but of what Windows
calls it.

There is another way to specify a drive (that is hardware-specific) that
is a part of the Windows startup code (that executes before drive
letters have been assigned). Windows will fail to boot if that is
incorrect (if seems really fragile that way). Perhaps you can find a way
to alter that code.

[SPAM SNIPPED!]

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"If God dwells inside us, like some people say, I sure hope he likes
enchiladas, because that's what he's getting." -- Deep Thoughts by Jack
Handey

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!