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can i boot xp from an external hard

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Name: purplemer
Date: September 7, 2007 at 00:29:30 Pacific
OS: vista
CPU/Ram: 1g?
Product: satalite toshiba
Comment:

hello
I just got a new toshiba satalite laptop and am runnin vista. I am findin it problomatic its not loadin lots of my software and keeps crashin.
I have just purchased a 400gb external harddrive usb2 with a fan. Would it be possibel to load xp onto the harddrive and boot from it if i wished too and would this be a difficult thing to do, i dont realy no to much about computers
ty 4 ur time
best wishes
ken



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Response Number 1
Name: Walter Mitty
Date: September 7, 2007 at 00:41:03 Pacific
Reply:

In a word NO, also XP questions are better in the XP Forum!

As to software crashing, if it is XP software check the manufacturers website to see if it Vista compatable, if it is not try installing/running in compatibility mode!


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Response Number 2
Name: The_Oracle
Date: September 7, 2007 at 03:06:46 Pacific
Reply:

In a word YES.

although not officially supported (Microsoft has yet to offer an installation routine to USB or Firewire drives) it can be done.

here is one of many guides about 'Installing and booting Windows XP from USB drive'

http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pagei...

other options are dual booting or virtualization (not recommended such a low memory computer like yours ... 1 GB is hardly enough to run vista on its own let alone a virtual machine on top of it)


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Response Number 3
Name: upurz2
Date: September 7, 2007 at 11:56:46 Pacific
Reply:

For the Geek it might be a yes but for the rest of us it's a no. :-)


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Response Number 4
Name: Outlander
Date: September 7, 2007 at 12:43:05 Pacific
Reply:

Very easy, use any XPSP2 CD and it should include the drivers for USB devices, Flash, HD, it doesnt matter. Boot off the XP CD, select the external HD and install away! Just remember to change your boot priority in the bios to USB, than CD, than HD.

I've done it many a times. There is also a SP3 release of XP floating around which has the drivers aswell.


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Response Number 5
Name: XpUser
Date: September 7, 2007 at 15:16:06 Pacific
Reply:

XP SP3 doesn't matter. If the PC BIOS does not support legacy USB boot, you're out of luck.

i_Xp/VistaUser


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