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.

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.




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With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.