Installing Vista on USB Drive

[romka]

hi,

i want to install vista onto an external usb drive.

when i start RC2 installation - i get:

Setup does not support configuration of or installation to disks connected through a usb or ieee 1394 port.


also when i hit F12 on bootup - it is evident that the drive is connected via a usb connection.

is there any way to 'fake it' being connected 'directly' and thus have the bios report it not going through usb?

thank you

[zyphria]

I figure you're installing it on an external hard drive because you don't want to nuke your primary hard drive, but you're far better served using something like Drive XML, backing up your current hard drive, creating a bootable BartPE disk with Drive XML on it, and installing Vista on your primary.

[chan_man]

You can install Vista on a second HDD in the TP drive tray (the one that replaces your optical drive). That is how I installed Vista. This way the system gives me a dual boot option when it is powered up.

[DAH]

To get the Vista dual boot option, one only needs a free partition, and you must start the install in your active partition. You can install to a different partition by choosing Custom Install. If you attempt to hide the partition, you will not get a vista dual boot option. Don't forget to make a copy of the files in this folder : C:\IBMTOOLS\drivers\IMSM
either onto a 3.5" disk or a CD to load the SATA drivers if your system is using SATA drives.

It does not require a second hard disk, you will need three partitions on your disk, your currant partition, the rescue and recovery partition, and the partition for Vista. While it is not required, (and the drives will switch from C: to E:, D: will remain the CD drive) it maybe a good idea to create a fourth partition to keep common data files in, that you can share between OS.