i have a external 80 GB USB Western digital hard drive, i have tried installing windows XP there before it wont boot.
When i got to my BIOS boot screen i push ESC so i can choose my external drive, then after that i see the HD activity light flash a few times then it just stops booting.
Whats wrong?
2007-07-12 10:38:23 · 7 answers · asked by compy_500 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
Windows XP has copy protection that prevents it from being run on multiple computers, this protection validates the hardware it's running on and I believe USB devices don't look exactly the same to the system on every boot so it probably won't work.
2007-07-14 05:37:47 · answer #1 · answered by U Betcha 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
jaguar07 has the right idea, u don't need to open ur pc and unplug anything. When rebooting go into setup or bios and change the drive from which u wan't ur pc to boot from, if u have a floopy thats usually the default, I had to do what I'm telling u the first time I had to reinstall my xp home. In my bios I changed it from booting from floopy to boot from my ROM drive. When u get inside the setup or bios ur mouse won't work it's all done with the updown sideway arrows on ur key board.
2007-07-20 15:37:09 · answer #2 · answered by typea911 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Try setting the External USB as the default boot device in the BIOS. It should work fine.
2007-07-20 07:51:42 · answer #3 · answered by Jag 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well my brother had a Dell and it would not boot up to where we needed it to boot up so what i did was i open it and disconnected the hard drive then as it was strat to boot up i i plug the other other external hard drive in just before it completely booted and to my surprise it work you might have to try it a couple of times to get the timing rite ,but ever since its been working fine and till this day he's a happy camper.
2007-07-20 03:34:46 · answer #4 · answered by fred m 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If your computer does not have a bios option to boot from a usb drive, then don't mess it up trying.
2007-07-20 17:14:43 · answer #5 · answered by Dondi 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends on the computer. Some computers won't boot off USB drives.
2007-07-12 19:57:56 · answer #6 · answered by Nomadd 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
windows' bootloader is stored on the motherboard i believe, thats why. there are hacking tools to get around this though, just google windows boot off ext hd.
2007-07-12 17:57:19 · answer #7 · answered by joelius24 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋