vnf4ultra
Posts: 1,360 +2
So I'm trying to install vista rc2 on my 400GB WD MyBook, which is usb, and I get an error message in the vista installer saying "windows does not support installing to drives with a usb or 1394 interface." So I think to myself, oh well, I'll pull the drive, put in in a pc and install vista on the drive, then put it back in the enclosure and use it. So I finally got the mybook disassembled (with help from google 
), and found the enclosure actually has a pretty nice drive inside, WD RE2 400GB SATA 16MB cache! I was totally expecting an EIDE PATA WD drive with 2MB or 8MB cache, so this was a huge bonus, but that's beside the point.
So then I put the bare drive in a pc and installed vista, slapped it back in the enclosure and it fails to boot (on the same machine that loaded vista to the drive) at "loading crcdisk." I can't get safe mode to work. I've tried a repair install of vista, to "fix the problems", but that didn't work either, it says it "can't fix the problem(s)..." So, I guess MS really doesn't want vista to be usb bootable. Is there any way to get this to work?
I was thinking of just buying a drive enclosure for the drive that has esata/sata on it so I can boot from it (this should work right, it's a sata interface instead of the MS "frowned on" usb/1394?), but I'm not sure if this would work. I basically want a vista external drive so I can test vista out (without the hassle of installing it on their main hard drives) on some computers to see how it runs before I actually buy it for those machines. Maybe what I want can't be done, I don't know.
Any help is appreciated!
Thanks.
), and found the enclosure actually has a pretty nice drive inside, WD RE2 400GB SATA 16MB cache! I was totally expecting an EIDE PATA WD drive with 2MB or 8MB cache, so this was a huge bonus, but that's beside the point.So then I put the bare drive in a pc and installed vista, slapped it back in the enclosure and it fails to boot (on the same machine that loaded vista to the drive) at "loading crcdisk." I can't get safe mode to work. I've tried a repair install of vista, to "fix the problems", but that didn't work either, it says it "can't fix the problem(s)..." So, I guess MS really doesn't want vista to be usb bootable. Is there any way to get this to work?
I was thinking of just buying a drive enclosure for the drive that has esata/sata on it so I can boot from it (this should work right, it's a sata interface instead of the MS "frowned on" usb/1394?), but I'm not sure if this would work. I basically want a vista external drive so I can test vista out (without the hassle of installing it on their main hard drives) on some computers to see how it runs before I actually buy it for those machines. Maybe what I want can't be done, I don't know.
Any help is appreciated!
Thanks.
