Installing OS on removable HDD

[Dreaming]

Hey guys.

I've been thinking about this - is it fairly straightforward to install an operating system onto a removable hard disk? Just for the purposes of troubleshooting really. It could be plugged in, change boot priority in bios and have it boot whatever OS off the portable disk for when my PC goes down (like now). Also could include basic apps like word, msn & firefox. Would linux be a good contender for this kind of thing? Or windows xp? Would like to keep it fairly 'lite' but I've saved 50gb at the start of the hard disk for emergencies.

Maybe I could be clever and install grub and have several 'emergency' OSs

[gurpz1]

i believe installing on removable storage is as easy as installing on local hdd, but if your going to use it in emergency situations aren't you better off using a USB copy of XP (saves space on your external hdd) or a linux live cd?

[Dreaming]

Yea probably. I'd probably dump loads of drivers on there for anything I could potentially need too. The problem with live CDs is although they're ok, I've found linux needs a fair few days of tinkering to get it recognising things properly. My uni network for example requires settings and files created because it uses encryption or something, and that took me half a day in itself! That was on an installed hard disk, on a live cd I've only been able to use it for very basic stuff and often at non-native resolution.

Main problem with usb XP is that I haven't a spare licence (well I have, but it's OEM to a dead laptop so ) so I may get the microsoft smackdown. I'll have to see...

[kalniel]

You wouldn't be able to take it to different computers, but it might be possible for use on the same computer each time.

[Dreaming]

You wouldn't be able to take it to different computers, but it might be possible for use on the same computer each time.

Makes it kind of useless then . Ah well, was just an idea.

[threepe]

I tried this, but did not get too far.

I copied an image of my system partition onto a 3.5" USB drive. Set the boot priority up in the BIOS to boot from USB, rubbed my hands and waited....and waited...and got nothing

I think the type of partition of the USB drive may be important. I have not done a lot of research on this, but I have a feeling that it cannot be an NTFS partition for it to be bootable on an external drive. If this is indeed true, then you are limited in the size of partition you can create.

[b0redom]

Download the UBCD for Windows here:

UBCD for Windows

You need an original XP install disk, but it's absolutely fantastic. I've been using it to clone Windows boxes.

Basically it's a Knoppix type boot image, but for Windows, including all sorts of useful apps.

[directhex]

Yea probably. I'd probably dump loads of drivers on there for anything I could potentially need too. The problem with live CDs is although they're ok, I've found linux needs a fair few days of tinkering to get it recognising things properly. My uni network for example requires settings and files created because it uses encryption or something, and that took me half a day in itself!

click the network icon in the top right, click name of wireless network, enter encryption details when asked

[Dreaming]

click the network icon in the top right, click name of wireless network, enter encryption details when asked

It's not a wireless network, it's quite fancy :s linux is more robust than windows. After every reboot of windows I need to re-enter credentials. There is a guide for the linux set up anyway on the uni network when you first connect, it just doesn't work (it's supposed to do it automatically, but it doesn't, so I had to find some random file from the internet (verisign roots or something).

What it took me half a day to do actually has now been concisely written here: if you're interested. I say half a day. I mean 2-3 hours (that's still bad, isn't it )

[Dreaming]

click the network icon in the top right, click name of wireless network, enter encryption details when asked

It's not a wireless network, it's quite fancy :s linux is more robust than windows. After every reboot of windows I need to re-enter credentials. There is a guide for the linux set up anyway on the uni network when you first connect, it just doesn't work (it's supposed to do it automatically, but it doesn't, so I had to find some random file from the internet (verisign roots or something).

What it took me half a day to do actually has now been concisely written here:
here
if you're interested. I say half a day. I mean 2-3 hours (that's still bad, isn't it )

[peterb]

Just to go back to the original post - you can use a Linux live CD and store the operating environemet on a USB stick - so you boot off the CD with the USB stick in place, and thye USB stick keeps all the settings so that you have a persisant environment (browser settings /home directory etc. This can be encrypted too. Essentially it means that you can use any computer wthat is set to boot off CD and has a USB port. The solution that boredom suggested sounds similar, but using the Windows OS, but not having used it myself, I can't compare the two.

[Akira]

Hi there,

I have installed a prog called MojoPac on my portable USB drive. it runs an XP shell that also allows you to install many (but not all) programs onto your portable drive as if it were a fully loaded OS install.

You can download it from here.

Have a looky, it's certainly an interesting app to know about even if you don't use it.

Best,

Akira.