My BIOS supports booting from a USB drive (Phoenix AwardBIOS v6.00pg.) When I began setting up my new computer I made an initial Ghost image of the setup (to save set-up hassles in the future.) I have a redundant 20gig drive and I decided to put the USB boot option to the test. Accordingly I used Ghost to transfer my initial set-up image to the 20gig drive and this was successful. I accessed the BIOS and shifted the 20gig to the number one boot position and rebooted. I was presented with this alert: 'Boot Failure Insert System Disk.' Now I know my image is good because I have used it to repair an earlier mess up. Would the fact that the image was made from a SATA drive and now being copied to an IDE drive be a cause of the non-boot? I might add that I also tried booting a Linux installation and the alert in that case said 'Boot Failure. Unrecognisable Partition.' Any suggestions will be appreciated. Once I thought I was wrong, now I'm not so sure!

i suppose, your image was initially setup as 'c:\' drive ... this drive letter, however, is reserved for your internal hard drive. if you want to boot from usb, you must 'install' an operating system on your external drive. disconnect any internal hard disk, boot from your xp cd rom. the usb drive will be recognized, now follow the usual precedure. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

Thank you Mattie... my BIOS presently lists the drives I have on the system in numerical order, I'll try to explain the setup thus: 1. C: drive (has XP on it) 2. H: drive (has a 'test' XP on it 3. First USB (has the subject of this thread on it ie: XP) 4. Second USB (has all my backup on it) 5. Third USB (has all my video work on it) By entering the appropriate section in the BIOS I can move 'H' to position 1 and 'C' to position 2 and the drive letters will change automatically... H becomes C and C becomes H. I assumed that if I moved USB drive 3 to position 1 it would become C by the same process. Would you expand on this bit of your reply please: 'if you want to boot from usb, you must 'install' an operating system on your external drive. disconnect any internal hard disk, boot from your xp cd rom. the usb drive will be recognized, now follow the usual precedure.' The USB has an operating system on it and therefore should boot (Ithink.) Regards. Once I thought I was wrong, now I'm not so sure!

I'm going to make an assumption that you made an image of the XP partition and not the drive. {Boot Failure Insert System Disk.'} the error is from the bios, it can not see a bootable device. Check to see if the USB 20g hdd has an Active primary partition. Very likely you will have one other problem during XP bootup, the XP ID code in the MBR is going to be wrong. {{I might add that I also tried booting a Linux installation } Where is it, you did not list in last post. If you have other hdd's connected , we need to know.

Thank you TopFarmer... Using Disk Management the installation on C: shows in brackets (System), the installation on H: (which is also bootable) shows (Active), the installation on the USB shows (Healthy.) It would seem therefore that this is where the problem lies. Can I use Partition Manager to make it active... or am I pushing my luck. With regards to Linux... it was always just an experimental thing mainly to learn about Linux but when I discovered that Linux will not read USB modems I scrubbed the whole idea and that is why it does not appear. Regards. PS: I rewrote the boot.ini with three options and I can swap between my mounted drives with no problem but when I select the USB option I am met with a black screen. Once I thought I was wrong, now I'm not so sure!

"the installation on H: (which is also bootable) shows (Active)" Should beable to use Disk Management to set a partition active. Need clarification : I assumed D: is your USB drive, am i worng ? (thinking I might be) Due to the USB has an Actie partition ,there are only 2 other items I can think of. 1) There is no boot code in the MBR of the USB drive. To rewrit it: a) use XP's Recovery Console and run FIXBOOT. {be sure it is installed on the USB drive} b)see if Partition Manager has a function to rewrite the MBR. 2)You have not set the bios correctly. Be sure that the correct USB device is set/enabled as the first boot item. I do sespect the problem lies in the bios. If you start to get a different error then "Boot Failure Insert System Disk.'" that will be progress and a different fix. Do you have a floppy drive in system ?

Thank you TopFarmer... I am just checking the post before I go to work... I'll follow up in more detail tonight. A quick response though indicates that possibly there is no boot code. I'll check later. Regards. Once I thought I was wrong, now I'm not so sure!