[Griffard]

I have a Mini 9, 16GB SSD, XP , upgraded to 2GB RAM
My daughter has a mini 9, XP, 8GB SSD, 1G RAM.

My internal SSD died.
So I figured it would be nice to swetup a USB boot as an alternative. Like many, I hoped I could boot from a discreet SD/HC but I realise that is not possible. The next best thing (IMHO) is a Sandisk Cruzer Fit (ie a USB stick whose "sticking out bit" is so tiny I can live with it.

So I ensured that that my Mini will boot from USB (I have a USB with a Chromium OS image on and I can definitely boot it from that)

Then I took my 32GB Sandisk USB Fit, and in my daughter's mini I ran Acronis disk imaging s/w and cloned her C drive onto the USB drive.

I can now pop this very discrete little device into my Mini and it boots Windows again.

Or at least that was the plan - the boot proceeds past the WindowsXP picture and then pups up a message which among other things, advises a Chkdsk / F


So my question to anyone in the know reading this is as follows:

1. Is my approach broadly sound or am I missing something fundamental ?

2. I'm aware that although I clearly have an XP license for my own mini 9 this cloning of an OS disk would probably be frowned upon my microsoft. IS ther eany way this could actually be the problem ? That the Windows image somehow can be seen by Windows to not match the PC ?

3. is the problem that all references in this Windows image are to C and that this drive doesn't wake up with a letter ? In which case is there anything in the config files on the drive I can fix from another PC ?

Any suggestions hugely appreciated.

[rrfranczak3]

well, 1st of all, you really can not run Windows off of a USB drive, it doesnt like it, 2nd of all most people that run an OS off of their USB drive run a version of Linux which doesnt mind being run from a USB drive, 3rd of all if you are going to try to boot from the USB you most go into the BIOS and enable 'Legacy USB' or 'USB Legacy' whatever its called then when the system 1st boots you must go into the boot options and boot from the USB drive, another option would be to create a Windows Installation USB and reload Windows onto your system, you will need a PC with a DVD/CD drive to create the USB install Flashdrive or you must have an external DVD/CD to do it...there are threads here on this board on how to create the USB Flashdrive installation...search for them....

PS. Welcome to the forum....

[Bebita]

I installed a USB drive internal to the Mini 9 and loaded it with Knoppix. Knoppix is a free "Live DVD" (Also a smaller CD version) of Debian Linux. It is very nice and supports a lot of software. I am also trying to figure out how to replace my dead SSD with a compact flash card to bring back Windows.

[rrfranczak3]

Originally Posted by Bebita

I am also trying to figure out how to replace my dead SSD with a compact flash card to bring back Windows.

as I said ABOVE, Windows will not run externally, an external hard drive, USB or Flash card will NOT work, some have had some success but it aint easy...I would forget it if I were you

[Griffard]

When you say "create a USB boot disk and reload Windows onto your system" do you mean onto the SDD ?
I have no SSD.

[rrfranczak3]

no, there are utilities such as winsetupfromusb and others (Microsoft has one also) that will allow you to create a Windows installation onto a USB flashdrive and allow you to reload windows from there,. the other choice is to use an external DVD/CD drive and reload Windows that way, this will work for both an SSD drive or a regular Hard drive but you do need one or the other, you can not run windows from an external source, no matter what it is