Probem: Booting from a USB Drive without built-in BIOS support.

[HybridShadow]

I'm running a crusty Acer 3000 laptop with a 55gb hard drive, it's about a year old and it's BIOS doesn't support booting from a usb device. Bugger, since I've just inherited a 120gb hard drive which i've shoved into an enclosure. I've googled around for possible solutions to my problem, the most viable being to create a bootable floppy with a script that lets it boot from the usb drive.

There are two problems with this - 1) I don't have a floppy disk drive, and 2) even if I did I wouldn't want to go through all that just to start the system.

I know there are other ways to do it. Unfortunatley I don't have the patience to read through masses of articles and forum topics to find a solution.

I've tried to flash the BIOS with an update that I found on the Acer site (after spending what seemed like hours of frustration trying to find driver downloads), but it only updated support for SCSI and bluetooth. ****. I did find a copy of Phoenix BIOS - no idea if it's an updated version, though.

I'd greatly appreciate any help with this.

UPDATE: I got through the text based setup fine, but when it goes to boot windows I get a Blue Screen with the code 0x0000007B

My next step is to stop that Blue Screen

Edited December 20, 2006 by HybridShadow

[Madhits45]

wait how did you get it to boot then. Some hacked bios or what?

[HybridShadow]

I updated the BIOS and Windows XP setup detected the drive. But when it shows the boot screen for the first time after setup copies all the files I get a blue screen.

[Madhits45]

Does the bios see it & allow booting? Or are you starting from a CD then switching to USB. Or are you trying to install on the USB device?

The blue screen probably has more to do with a corrupt file or the source of files then anything. If you can boot to it then obviously windows setup is working. As far as using a usb disc to install to that can be tricky.

[jaclaz]

There are two separate problems:

1) whether the BIOS "sees" or not the drive when booting

2) whether XP can boot from USB

According to Microsoft, Windows XP CANNOT be booted from a USB device.

Dietmar Stolting found some workarounds for this, see here:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181

There is nothing to do if problem 1) is not solved by a BIOS update.

If you don't have the time/don't want to go through the thread to solve problem 2), the only "easy" solution is this one:

http://www.usboot.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=Welcome

If it doesn't work for you, will need to go through the thread anyway.

jaclaz

[Ponch]

Most computers from 2003 can boot USB so it would have surprised me.

[LLXX]

Most computers from 2003 can boot USB so it would have surprised me.

My Abit PX7 with Pentium 233MMX from 1993 could boot from a USB (1.1) drive. This feature is not very new. However, whether or not the manufacturer has decided to implement it is the question...

What exactly are you trying to do? Install Windows on the main HDD by using an external HDD to hold the setup files, or boot Windows XP from that external HDD?

[Ponch]

My Abit PX7 with Pentium 233MMX from 1993 could boot from a USB (1.1) drive. This feature is not very new.

hum... http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm#1993

[LLXX]

Mobo is from '93, CPU is newer. But it's actually an overclocked 200

BIOS is probably '95

Edited December 22, 2006 by LLXX