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Using Boot Camp to boot XP from external hard drive
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Hi. I have an interesting question that maybe someone knows about. I have been trying to install windows xp on a WD Passport. I have the usb bootable xp disc made. I tried to install it using the remove the internal hard drive method (i have a macbook) to no avail. Long story short, i was able to install it successfully using my windows desktop machine. it successfully booted into windows straight off the hard drive. I brought the external hard drive to my macbook and plugged it in. I successfully used the boot camp method under parallels desktop to boot windows as well. However, when i use rEFIt to try and boot it, it goes to the blinking cursor. It waits for a little bit, then start to load windows. when the little blue progress bar is moving along the screen to boot windows, it looks like its about to load. then it flashes some error message so fast no one could read it and then it reboots the machine.
First, is there a fix for that?
Second, if there isn't, is there any way to make the 5GB boot camp drive on my internal disk and load just the main windows files (boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com, etc) to that partition and then modify the boot.ini file to point to the external drive so that when i select the internal boot camp drive on start up it will point to the external drive and boot from that? kinda confusing i know, but it seems like the logic is there.
Thanks
(Last edited by jblaue; Jan 5, 2008 at 01:18 PM.
(Reason:Title Change))
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Administrator  Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Welcome to the MacNN Forums!
XP is not built to boot from an external drive. During the Windows boot process, the system re-enumerates all USB connections (even though it could retrieve this data from BIOS, it does it anyway), so it will lose connection with an external drive and the boot will fail.
There IS a way to make this work, but you have to hack both the installer and part of the Windows OS code to do it. Not for someone who doesn't typically play with bit-level adjustments in their computer's operating systems...
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Glenn -----
OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Mac Enthusiast
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What porter's trying to say is for the average user and hell...even someone like me who's a windows tech... no, theres no way to boot a bootcamp xp install from USB.
Now, if you want to talk parallels then you can do it all day long. I've got a Vista and XP parallels setup that works wonders off a USB/Firewire drive. Works great because the only times I need windows is when I"m at my desk and plugged in. If you want to know more just ask.
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What is an XP parallel? Is it simply a linux copy of the Windows software, but easier to use and more open?
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Moderator  Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Jose, CA
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Celebrating 10 years and 4000 posts on MacNN!
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Administrator Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Originally Posted by bishopazrael 
What porter's trying to say is for the average user and hell...even someone like me who's a windows tech... no, theres no way to boot a bootcamp xp install from USB.
Was I that unclear? Crap! I tried to be very clear. But looking back, it does have an awful lot of buzzwords, doesn't it? Sorry.
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Glenn -----
OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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