Installing Windows in an external hdd...

[DarkWolf]

Ideally, I'd like to install a slimmed down Windows 98 onto my 80gig external usb2 hdd. The reason for wanting to do this, is for the times when I want to play a game or something, that I can't get working with Cedega/Crossover Office/WINE in Linux.

And rather than dual booting, and dealing with the potential hassles, I'd like to be able to just switch the boot priority in my bios, and boot from the external drive into Windows 98, and get my game on.

Is this even possible? I'd even be willing to do Windows XP, simply for the native usb2 support (with sp1 of course :-/) if 98 won't work (even with the usb2 drivers). Certainly I'd prefer 98 due to it's smaller footprint, and less hardware requirements (ie: I think it'd run fine on an external drive, where I think XP might choke, especially if it ever has to hit the pagefile.), and also because the fat32 file system (even though XP can also do this) will still be read/writable from Linux so I can use the drive as backup/storage still.

Would it be as simple as booting form the 98 disc and it see the drive? I know you can change the drive letter/directory for the install, but wondering if the drive will actually be recognized during the 98 install (USB emulation through bios I think is shut off once the OS takes over... which I imagine would also include during OS installation)?

I guess I need to see if I can find my old 98 discs and try it out.

[jakesford]

it sounds like you answered your own question lol... I had a friend that tried to do this exact same thing, it seems that it really depends on the mobo that you are using. Some are really hit and miss with usb boots... BTW he was trying to do this off a 1gig thumb drive with linux. I have seen XP done on an external drive but don't remember which mobo.

I think its going to be one of those guess and check situations

[DarkWolf]

I just had another idea... this one might actually be the most likely to work. Boot the system (floppy, usb stick, cd, whatever), and make sure whatever is used to boot has dos usb drivers loading.

Fdisk/Format the external hdd, and copy over command.com, io.sys, config.sys, and autoexec.bat, making any necessary changes for drive letters, as well as copying over the necessary cd and usb drivers.

Reboot the system, but now using the external hdd... in theory this should load the cd and usb drivers, and be ready to install 98. Since it's using dos based drivers for usb... in theory 98 should install with no problems as this does have a drive letter (let's assign it C, so as not to confuse 98 any more than necessary, besides the internal hdd will either be disabled (via bios) or at least the system won't be recognized, and won't be assigned to C).

Hell... it may even be easier than I'm thinking, and might just be able to start the install from the first boot using the floppy/usb stick/cd/whatever

[Stang2be]

I've got a 512mb usb key I carry with a pen drive install of Damn Small Linux. I would think you could install 98 rather easy. The trick will be like stated of having a mobo that will support usb boot.

[Roliath]

Ha, there is a version of windows slimed down to 55MB on xtremesystems.
But you have to be in D20L to get it.

[trey85stang]

I've seen some version of windows (2000 I think) installed on a USB key.. its feasable for sure.

[DarkWolf]

Well, it looks like I'm going to have to go the 2000/XP route, simply because of a lack of drivers for my laptop being available for 98 :-/ I was only succesful in finding the lan, and chipset drivers... not so good. Well, maybe the video card too if the Nvidia drivers work with the mobile cards... but from past experience, they don't.

I'll probably try and tackle it this weekend. I know I've seen 2000 and XP on usb sticks before, but never have seen a "how to". I'd imagine it'd be the same process for a usb external hdd though, if I could find one.

Oh, and for small 98 installs... In digging around for some info on doing this, I've seen one as small as 5meg http://www.dfwstangs.net/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif I'd hate to see how crippled it is, but it was running and System Information was up showing 4.98MB used. :D

[DarkWolf]

Ok, status update. XP install sees the usb drive with no problem. The problem is, the XP install wants to install "startup files" onto the internal hdd, which of course it can't with the linux partitions taking up the whole thing. XP refuses to install otherwise.

So now, I'm debating which would be more probable: 1) remove the internal drive from the laptop, and force xp to only see the usb drive (but then would that produce the "no bootable media detected" error that you get if you don't install a scsi or sata driver at the beginning?)... or 2) take the drive out of the external encloser, and set it as the sole drive in my media pc. Complete the text install and put the drive back in the enclosure and see if the system can boot from it to continue with the gui portion of the install.

[DFWminis]

try number 2 ....I have not done it on a Laptop ...but on my puter that is what I use to do ..

[DarkWolf]

Didn't work. Got a bsod before it even started through the rest of the install process. Although it's promising in that it did at least TRY to boot :)

So I did some more digging, and I found this forum thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181

In the 22 pages there's 3 revisions on a method of getting this to work. One of the claims is that it can boot on any system, regardless of where it was initially installed. That'd be pretty cool.

I guess I'm gonna give one (or all) of those a shot sometime this week if I get a chance.

[trey85stang]

[QUOTE=DarkWolf]Didn't work. Got a bsod before it even started through the rest of the install process. Although it's promising in that it did at least TRY to boot :)

So I did some more digging, and I found this forum thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181

In the 22 pages there's 3 revisions on a method of getting this to work. One of the claims is that it can boot on any system, regardless of where it was initially installed. That'd be pretty cool.

I guess I'm gonna give one (or all) of those a shot sometime this week if I get a chance.[/QUOTE]


Keep this thread updated if you are able to get it to work. I would not mind having a USB With windows installed on it for doing firmware updates on my machine and stuff.

[DarkWolf]

Probably going to give it a go tonight. Might have to dump Ubuntu for a short time while I get a "fresh" XP installed and ready to modify/transfer to the usb drive.

Which might then be a good excuse to give Mandriva a go for a bit, after I get xp booting from the usb drive.

I wasn't even thinking about firmware updates, but that's definitely another reason :) I just got some 16x dvd-r's that neither of my drives will write to until I update their firmware (anyone want odds on whether Dell will actually release updated firmware for my laptop's dvdrw?).

[DarkWolf]

Can I get a HELL YEAH?! It's working like a charm.

I followed version 3 of the "walk through" on the forum link I posted earlier. I think it's on page 12 or 13, or somewhere pretty close to there. It says some systems may need a modified file, but my system doesn't. There's one part near the end before rebooting to test booting windows from the usb drive:

16.) Look on your USB device in Windows folder for the inf folder.

Search USB.inf, delete USB.PNF.
Search usbport.inf, delete usbport.PNF.
Search usbstor.inf , delete usbstor.PNF.

Open usb.inf, (then usbport.inf, then usbstor.inf).

Set in each the LoadOrderGroup... to... System Reserved ONLY for usbhub, usbehci, usbohci, usbuhci .

Set StartType = 0 ONLY for usbhub, usbehci, usbohci, usbuhci, usbstor.

Generate key LoadOrderGroup for usbstor and set it also System Reserved .

That last part, "Generate key LoadOrderGroup for usbstor..." I wasn't quite clear on what that meant, but near the end of the usbstor.inf, I saw StartType = 3, but no LoadOrderGroup, so I added it in that section, set the StartType to 0 and hoped that was right :).

I also used my nLite install disc, to make the install as light as possible, without giving up too much functionality. Before adding anything, it's only using about 50 megs of ram :) Seems to run pretty close to normal speed as well, which is kind of surprising, I dreaded that it'd be dog ass slow with XP, but it's not bad at all... at least not yet. I'll have a better idea once I start getting stuff installed.

I did have to dump Ubuntu for the time I spent getting this to work. I went ahead and grabbed the ubuntu live disc to use when copying the xp install over to the usb drive from the internal hdd. Wanted to use it for the registry editing as well, but couldn't find anything to use in Linux. Started to get frustrated until it dawned on me that I could boot from the internal drive, and still load the registry hive from the usb drive, and continue the walkthrough.

But now, I'm happily back in Ubuntu, and got my usb hdd ready to boot xp whenever I need it :) Debating whether I should adjust the boot order in bios as needed, or leave usb boot before hdd boot, and just have the drive disconnected whenever I reboot if I don't want it going into xp. The latter would certainly be easier/faster. Not that I need to reboot that often, even with xp I'd not reboot for months.

[DarkWolf]

And posting this from XP on the external drive. Everything seems to be working most excellent. Even ran WoW a bit, and if I didn't know XP and WoW were on an external hdd, I'd have thought they were installed as normal.

Still curious about the pagefile issue though. Gonna look into it some more, as it's disabled now. But it seems to me, that if it was min/max set at something like 3gigs, so it can't scale up or down in size, while it'd still be a performance hit as it always is, it wouldn't be so drastic as the space is already allocated. Unless there's something inherently wrong with having a pagefile on the external hdd, but I can't imagine there would be.

[trey85stang]

[QUOTE=DarkWolf]And posting this from XP on the external drive. Everything seems to be working most excellent. Even ran WoW a bit, and if I didn't know XP and WoW were on an external hdd, I'd have thought they were installed as normal.

Still curious about the pagefile issue though. Gonna look into it some more, as it's disabled now. But it seems to me, that if it was min/max set at something like 3gigs, so it can't scale up or down in size, while it'd still be a performance hit as it always is, it wouldn't be so drastic as the space is already allocated. Unless there's something inherently wrong with having a pagefile on the external hdd, but I can't imagine there would be.[/QUOTE]


That sounds pimp... You have WOW 2go now :D

[dudeitstaylor]

where do i put my CD-ROM? durrrrrr..... ;)