Hello all. I have a technical background (hardware control systems), but am by no means a threat to any IT guy who actually understands DOS (Greek), or different OS platforms. In that regard, I will claim ignorance with a smidgen of knowledge---just so you know who you are dealing with and will correspondingly, dumb down your answers to my level (slightly smarter than a pile of rocks when it comes to absorbing this type of information).
I have a Dell GX630, 3.2 GHz computer with Windows XP Pro SP3 that is replacing my older 700MHz machine. I have painfully copied all programs, files, and added the peripheral hardware (printer, scanner, modems) to make this a duplicate replacement computer system with an addition monitor.
I have read all the posts for making a bootable flash drive (stick) and made both a Hirens bootable stick (three different sticks, Sandisk 4GB, Kingston 1 GB, and a generic 16GB) and a BartPE bootable CD disk….my eyes bled, and the hammering base drum in my head has subsided. I’m Scotch/Irish/German with no desire to conquer the world, drink every Pub dry, and do it for little or no money, but I am stubborn, hard-headed, and tenacious to a fault.
My goal is to make a stand-a-lone Seagate FreeAgent USB (self powered) external drive, a working replacement "main drive (0)" for my computer with it’s own operating system
(XP Pro SP3). I used the Seagate software to clone the C SATA drive to this USB drive (NTFS). The reality is to have a cloned external hard drive that could be used to boot a computer and clone a new internal hard drive if the original SATA drive had a mechanical malfunction. I don’t want to just backup files, but all programs, drivers, and the same OS.
The USB drive works as a duplicate storage device with all files and information that the SATA drive holds, when one does a normal boot. The USB drive won’t boot after the BIOS has been changed to USB device, priority 1 in the boot file. The sticks do, but not this hard drive.
I assume it lacks either the boot ini files that the sticks need, or that the USB recognition function for a hard drive come later in the boot sequence and thus is not recognized. Obviously I don’t understand this stuff or I could fix it myself.
In my readings of boot problems on this site, I noticed a topic about multiple partitioning of a stick, as well as fooling the DOS into thinking the stick was an actual internal hard drive, thus assigning drive letters for the primary, and remaining volume. It is a guide in the guide forum...actually a post to a link lancelhoff, multi-partition USB flash drive in windows.
Is this the approach to use, or am I mixing apples with oranges and doomed to fry something?
l
I have a Dell GX630, 3.2 GHz computer with Windows XP Pro SP3 that is replacing my older 700MHz machine. I have painfully copied all programs, files, and added the peripheral hardware (printer, scanner, modems) to make this a duplicate replacement computer system with an addition monitor.
I have read all the posts for making a bootable flash drive (stick) and made both a Hirens bootable stick (three different sticks, Sandisk 4GB, Kingston 1 GB, and a generic 16GB) and a BartPE bootable CD disk….my eyes bled, and the hammering base drum in my head has subsided. I’m Scotch/Irish/German with no desire to conquer the world, drink every Pub dry, and do it for little or no money, but I am stubborn, hard-headed, and tenacious to a fault.
My goal is to make a stand-a-lone Seagate FreeAgent USB (self powered) external drive, a working replacement "main drive (0)" for my computer with it’s own operating system
(XP Pro SP3). I used the Seagate software to clone the C SATA drive to this USB drive (NTFS). The reality is to have a cloned external hard drive that could be used to boot a computer and clone a new internal hard drive if the original SATA drive had a mechanical malfunction. I don’t want to just backup files, but all programs, drivers, and the same OS.
The USB drive works as a duplicate storage device with all files and information that the SATA drive holds, when one does a normal boot. The USB drive won’t boot after the BIOS has been changed to USB device, priority 1 in the boot file. The sticks do, but not this hard drive.
I assume it lacks either the boot ini files that the sticks need, or that the USB recognition function for a hard drive come later in the boot sequence and thus is not recognized. Obviously I don’t understand this stuff or I could fix it myself.
In my readings of boot problems on this site, I noticed a topic about multiple partitioning of a stick, as well as fooling the DOS into thinking the stick was an actual internal hard drive, thus assigning drive letters for the primary, and remaining volume. It is a guide in the guide forum...actually a post to a link lancelhoff, multi-partition USB flash drive in windows.
Is this the approach to use, or am I mixing apples with oranges and doomed to fry something?
l