Why can’t I boot a laptop from a USB disk?

bsod

Are you doing this out of interest, or do you have a purpose in mind?

Avoriaz

bsod wrote: »

Are you doing this out of interest, or do you have a purpose in mind?

I do have a purpose.

My Adaptec USB video capture device doesn't work with 7. If I can boot the Acer with the XP disk, I might be able to use it again rather than buying a 7 capable device.

tomsolomon

Avoriaz wrote: »

I do have a purpose.

My Adaptec USB video capture device doesn't work with 7. If I can boot the Acer with the XP disk, I might be able to use it again rather than buying a 7 capable device.

Vista and 7 sucks granny balls..........

debitcardmayhem

Avoriaz wrote: »

I do have a purpose.

My Adaptec USB video capture device doesn't work with 7. If I can boot the Acer with the XP disk, I might be able to use it again rather than buying a 7 capable device.

Of course you could run the program then using in compatibiltiy mode

sharkie

make sure your bios is the latest version.

The usb caddy may interpret the disk to have different sectors/cylinder parameters.

So say this disk does boot, the boot information will immediately point to your built-in hdd, as the usb one will have a different letter.

gaming_guy

just bear in mind that it will probably flag up a not genuine message if WinXP is a Dell OEM copy.

Gavin57

Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7—Even on a Netbook

Avoriaz

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Of course you could run the program then using in compatibiltiy mode

The problem is that my laptop with Windows7 won't recognise the hardware. It tries to install a driver and then says none are available.

If I try and install it using the supplied CD, the installer puts up a mesage saying "Device not found" and shuts down.

I have checked the Adaptec site and that states that there are no plans to develop a driver for Windows7.

The device is quite old and was made for XP.

I'm checking out alternatives such as the Pinnacle Dazzle range.


Thanks everyone for your comments.

Lil306

Windows 7 has it's own PE based boot system which is gay enough as it is

If you want a basic bootable pen, do a google search for HP USB Format Tool and Windows Boot Files. Exctract the file contents and Run the HP Tool on the USB pen (format to FAT32) with the files for "boot disks" extracted from the above file specified

This will then make a basic bootable USB

Ideally if you want to inject drivers you should use something like WinPE and GImageX from the Windows AIK. You'll have more control and WinPE is based around the Vista shell. It's more of a mess on however, and I haven't much experience with it yet, but there's plenty of guides on the net you can look at

Avoriaz

tomsolomon wrote: »

Vista and 7 sucks granny balls..........

I agree about memory hungry Vista. My friend has Vista, on an admittedly only 1gb memory laptop, and it is an absolute dog.

However I like 7. My new laptop has 4gb memory, with about 2.8gb available, so 7 runs sweetly most of the time.

Apart from not being able to use the Adaptec, and I was considering replacing that anyway, I prefer 7 to XP.

Although maybe that is because I ran XP on a 6 year old machine and I now have a shiny new laptop for 7.