Boot From USB Help

[hamrad]

I would like to be able to boot from a USB Hard drive if possible. I replaced my 80 gig drive in my T61 with a 320 gig and installed Vista Ultimate on the 320. I have a fresh recovery install of Vista home on the 80 gig in a USB hard drive enclosure. I have 2 programs that need a com port and the only way I can get my usb to com port adapter to work is with Vista home. I have tried everything to get the usb to com port adapter to work with Vista Ultimate but just can't figure it out. So, is there any way to just plug in the USB hard drive when I need Vista Home and boot it up and be good to go?? Or does anyone know what needs done to get the usb to com adapter to work with ultimate?? It had the prolific chipset. Thanks!!

[yak]

I'm not sure about booting from USB but could you explain in more details why the USB->COM converter doesn't work in Vista Ultimate? There must be a way to make it work since I'm using a similar cable which most probably is also prolific based and it works flawlessly in Ultimate. I just plugged it in and Vista installed appropriate drivers by itself.

[hamrad]

Well, I use it to control an amateur radio as well as programming some recievers. It loaded the drivers fine when plugged in, but won't work with the devices. I used it fine with home edition before I upgraded to ultimate. I installed the new hard drive and installed ultimate. The first thing I did was plug in the usb to com adapter and it loaded the drivers. When trying to "control" the radio it starts to function correctly but stops after just a couple seconds. So, I reinstalled the 80 gig in the laptop and restored the system. Plugged in the adapter, it loaded the drivers and works fine!! So what could be different in the OS to cause this? I bought another usb to com adapter that was suppose to be Vista compatable but it does the same thing. I figured since I have an extra hard drive and a usb enclosure if I could boot from it I could at least use the adapters. But I am not sure how to boot from a usb drive??
Thanks!!