Why no boot support for external USB HDs?

I found this after laying out cash on a Lacie 160gb Porsche drive - i Carbon Copy Cloned my startup disk onto the external, go to start-up disk in Sys Preferences, and choose the shiny new drive. It doesn't boot.
So I search and find this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474
My questions:
1. Why is USB booting not supported by OSX?
2. Is there any workaround?
thanks in advance,
Mike Power

thanks foir the replies, everyone. Even though firewire is faster, i thought at least apple would keep abreast of latest technology and create USB drivers that can handle prevalent technology.
I don't intend running my mac from the external HD permanently, only in emergencies when I have a hard drive failure on the laptop, so I couldd clone the OS across using drive genius or Carbon Copy and save hours of installation, and downloading updates to software.
Does anybody know anything about using the "burn image from" and "restore" commands on Disk Utility? Is there a disk image size limit? <derails own thread into tangent>
that way, I could simply burn an image of my laptop to the USB drive, and if all else failed restore it from the OSX install disk using Disk Utility.
All this because Apple have failed to supply working drivers... feels more like windows every day!
thankss to anyone who can answer this or earlier questions.
Mike Power

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BOOT FROM AN EXTERNAL USB DRIVE???

I know apple has made it clear about booting from an external USB drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474
but I know that there are people who are able to boot from an external drive, does anybody know how to do this?
It's just that id like to work on final cut studio on an external drive for various reasons:
1st: my powerbook's HD is small and slow (60gb)
2nd: my external usb drive is big (160 gb) and fast (7200 RMPS!)
so a little help would be apreciated
best regards

"Actually, USB II is faster than FW 400."
In theory, probably. In real life Firewire 400 is much faster than USB2, not to speak of Firewire 800:
"Wee Wiebetech" Portable FireWire/USB2 Drive Challenges The Fastest Competitors.

Does OS 9 have built in support for external Iomega Zip drives?

Hi,
Does OS 9.x have built-in support for external SCSI Iomega Zip drives?

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How can i install snow leopard on my mac G5 using a command line and booting from an external usb rom, since my disk i have is not a bootable media

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Hi.
You simply can't. Snow Leopard is compiled in Intel binary only.
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How can i create a Trash for external USB Drives ?

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how can i create a Trash for external USB Drives or my TimeCapsule ?
Thanks.

You do not need to create trash cans for individual drives. The trash can on the desktop holds deleted files from all mounted drives.
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USB Boot support for K7N420 Pro???

Would it be possible for the BIOS release to include USB Boot support?
This way you could use a lot of bootable USB peripherals (USB Flash DIsk for example) and you wouldn't need your FDD anymore.
Can this be done?
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S3270y Slimline won't boot/shutdown with External USB

I have a s3720y that was behaving just fine. It has Windows 7, 4 gb ram etc. I replaced (via image) the hard drive. Nothing else has changed on the machine. After putting in the new drive, the computer wouldn't boot past the HP splash screen. I unplugged the USB devices 1 by 1...when my Seagate external was pulled out it continued to boot. Let it boot, made sure all drivers installed etc and shut it down WITHOUT the external USB drive attached. Booted back up without it attached and it booted just fine and fast.
Plugged in the Seagate, it installed and showed up just fine. Shut down the machine and it just hung at the Windows 7 shutdown screen. Unplugged the external USB drive and it finished shutting down. Plugged the USB external in again powered on and yep it just sat there. I unplugged and yes...it booted.
First I have no idea why the Bios would suddenly decide it didn't like having an external drive attached. The drive that was replaced was a SATA and it was replaced with a SATA (SSD). The bios are version 5.21 and according to the wonderful and overly informative (notice my sarcasim) HP support site there aren't any BIOS available for my version (again I'm running Windows 7 64-bit).
I've run into this in the past but just not out of the blue. I went into BIOS and I don't see any reference to USB support. But the revision on these BIOS are like 2007 it seems. I don't understand how HP doesn't keep BIOS updated for machines that are running a current OS.
Anyway if anyone has any idea, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hi,
Check with Seagate and see if there is a firmware update available or issues with the particular model USB drive.
Check at the HP site for a QFE that pertains to your issue. I do see one available.
If the above fails to solve the issue then try the below.
Power up your PC. Now insert the USB drive (be sure to remove any critical data).
Open up the RUN window and enter the following commands:
cmd
diskpart
list disk    ----> note the drive # for the USB external drive
select disk #
clean   ---> this will totally clean the drive format, all partitions and data will be lost
exit
Now uplug the drive and plug it back in. You might get prompted to format the drive but ignore it for now.
Go to Disk Management expand the screen and locate the USB drive. Now click on it and initialize it as mbr and then then format the drive and assign a drive letter such as Y.
Now perform a windows shutdown and see if it hangs.
HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
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Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT

No application runs after booting from an external (USB) drive

Hi all,
my best hope is that I just embarrass myself with a blatantly obvious question instead of finding a real issue that will be resolved only in later updates. Here it is:
As I want to upgrade my hard drive in my good ol' MacBook, I wanted to backup my present boot HDD to an external USB drive (freshly formatted, HFS+ journaled, GUID partition table). I tried both SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. In both cases, the backup/cloning process goes fine, and I can reboot into the external drive, and the OS starts (yes, with wifi working, even iStat menus, textExpander etc. initiating fine). But all applications (not those on the menu bar, though) crash and notify me of some thread having tried some invalid operation, or sometimes I even got some vague reference to kernel protection.
Do you have any ideas what this is? Something new and (supposedly) secure in 10.5.6? I tried a fairly standard procedure, I think. (Also, it is a fairly pressing issue as I would not really want to waste much more time on this drive swap. And I would rather use disk-cloning than the install disk and sucking back data from an apparently unreliable backup.)
Many thanks for any thoughts!
(Just to inform the interested, I ran a fairly extensive cleaning-maintenance-rebuild cycle by the latest Onyx before starting all this, this should clean up the state of the OS pretty much. But I could not run DiskWarrior. Convince me if you think that this would solve the problem.)

Thanks Devin, I think my issue is a bit different.
I am 'long' past the 10.5.6 update (as long as possible), it did not crash, and Software Update checked what it wanted several times since then (as it is set to do so daily).
Thanks for the safe boot tip, I have not tried it yet, though I am skeptical why would this help applications starting up without breaking some kernel protection -- but only if I booted up from an external drive.
I repaired all I could before the cloning of the drive, only the deep maintenance of DiskWarrior was skipped. With the disk or the OS itself, I basically did what you can, even the stuff that you are rarely supposed to do. (Onyx is a great tool to do all these and more, freely.)
I am not sure either that a FireWire drive would have helped, but who knows. (But really, the OS would boot, just the applications would feel that their are on an 'inferior' drive?) In any case, FireWire drives are not that easy to come by, and a risky investment -- e.g. I could not use them with the new MacBooks. Oh, and all my work was done on a firm table, but again, the behavior would be hard to explain as the HDD misbehaving, as the OS had no glitch, just I could not start applications without their crashing immediately.
Thanks again, I hope I run into something useful or if it is a bug then Apple magically pushes out some update before their winter break, or I will sadly watch my precious new drive sitting on a table idly.

PCMCIA hardware: "Express Card" or "PC Card" (for external USB 2.0)

Can anyone advise how I might determine the external interface card hardware that is provided with my T43p Thinkpad? I've not used this feature on the machine previously, and do not recognize it from external view.
From the unit itself and original shipping documents, the T43p is model 2687DUU (shipped November 2005).
The packing list does not describe the hardware in detail.
The Service and Troubleshooting guide describes "ExpressCard/PC Card slots" but also says "Some models have the PC Card (Type II or Type III PC Card) slots only.
Device manager hardware report seems non-specific, and I can't tell whether it refers to the reader itself: "Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or Compatible CardBus Controller" under "PCMIA" adapters.
The slot has two ejector buttons and measures 54mm wide.
I need to buy an external USB 2.0 interface to support Western Digital external hard drive. An ExpressCard interface is inexpensive, but I would like to be sure that the T43p is built to support it.
Thanks for any help.
Robert
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Thanks very much for updates. The very slow throughput using the WD software is *extremely* slow. With only a 9.5 Gbyte backup to process, it was only about "80% done" after 7 hours. The problem seems to be with the WD software, since a simple Windows Explorer "copy" from internal hard disk to the WD drive completed a 11 Gbyte (sorry, I wrote 3 Gbyte originally) copy for a single file in about 5 minutes. The latter is indeed about what I would hope for from USB 2.0 (about half of the nominal 480 Mbps maximum).
I found various postings on the web relating to very slow USB backups to the My File product line. The product manual for my unit cites this as a FAQ, as follows:
Q: Why is the data transfer rate slow?
A: Your system may be operating at USB 1.1 speeds due to incorrect driver installation of the USB 2.0 adapter card or a system that does not support USB 2.0. If your system includes a PCI slot, you can achieve Hi-Speed USB transfer rates by installing a USB 2.0 PCI adapter card...
It seems clear that my native USB ports *can* move data to the disk at acceptable rates, but it's not happening in combination with the WD application software. A possible hint is that it seems that transfer rates really nosedive when lots of small files are being moved.
I agree it's a shot in the dark that new USB 2.0 interface will fix the problem - but it seems like an easy shot to take. The real problem might be in the design of the WD backup software, but I have no hope of fixing that. If new ports don't do the trick, I'll probably need to return the My File unit.
Since the WD external drive runs from an AC adapter, I'm not worried about a power shortage. I interpret this set up as not "portable", even though the My FIle is an external drive.

[Solved] Wait for external usb disk before mounting partition

Hello,
I have a fresh setup where 3 btrfs subvolumes are supposed to be mounted on /var /home and /opt. Those subvolumes are on an external usb drive (root fs is on a sd card).
During boot, systemd tries to mount /var first but encounter "var not empty, mounting anyway" (probably due to several boot attempts) and then "special device uUID=12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 does not exist" where 12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 is the correct id of the drive.
From journactl extract it seems that usb drive is not ready yet when /var is being mounted.
Is there a way to make systemd wait for "the disk is ready" before trying to mount /var ?
Information:
- mounting /var in rescue mode works perfectly (mount -o subvol=var /dev/sda /var)
- device is a raspberry but I think it has no link to the issue (except maybe being slow to send power to usb)
- the usb drive is behind a 4 port usb hub (externally powered)
- the usb drive indeed take some time to be powered up
- /home and /opt are mounted in rescue mode automatically a few seconds later
journatctl wrote:Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd[1]: Starting Local File Systems (Pre).
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd[1]: Reached target Local File Systems (Pre).
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd[1]: Mounting /var...
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd[1]: var.mount: Directory /var to mount over is not empty, mounting anyway.
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd-udevd[138]: starting version 218
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte mount[139]: mount: special device uUID=12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 does not exist
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte kernel: scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access Inateck 0001 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd[1]: var.mount mount process exited, code=exited status=32
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Jan 01 01:00:07 capodimonte systemd[1]: Failed to mount /var.
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: sda: unknown partition table
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: random: nonblocking pool is initialized
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: BTRFS: device label external_hdd devid 1 transid 24 /dev/sda
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte systemd[1]: Found device NS1066 external_hdd.
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte systemd[1]: Mounting /home...
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte systemd[1]: Mounting /opt...
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: BTRFS info (device sda): enabling auto defrag
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: BTRFS info (device sda): disk space caching is enabled
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte kernel: BTRFS: has skinny extents
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte systemd[1]: Mounted /home.
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte systemd[1]: Mounted /opt.
Jan 01 01:00:09 capodimonte systemd[1]: Startup finished in 5.088s (kernel) + 4.607s (userspace) = 9.696s.
My fstab:
# /dev/mmcblk0p3
UUID=4660fa0a-bcf6-4d83-b956-d7bf9df222b9 / ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda LABEL=external_hdd
UUID=12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 /home btrfs rw,relatime,space_cache,noatime,compress=lzo,autodefrag,subvol=home 0 0
# /dev/sda LABEL=external_hdd
uUID=12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 /var btrfs rw,relatime,space_cache,noatime,compress=lzo,autodefrag,x-systemd.device-timeout=30s,subvol=var 0 0
# /dev/sda LABEL=external_hdd
UUID=12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 /opt btrfs rw,relatime,space_cache,noatime,compress=lzo,autodefrag,subvol=opt 0 0
# /dev/mmcblk0p1
UUID=95DB-C13B /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0 2
Last edited by kamaradclimber (2015-03-12 19:25:40)

Thanks for your reply.
I don't see any btrfs subvolume information in /dev.
Here is the var.mount config:
systemctl show var.mount wrote:Where=/var
What=/dev/sda
Options=rw,relatime,compress=lzo,space_cache,autodefrag
Type=btrfs
TimeoutUSec=1min 30s
ControlPID=0
DirectoryMode=0755
SloppyOptions=no
Result=exit-code
ExecMount={ path=/bin/mount ; argv[]=/bin/mount -n uUID=12f15a3e-cf5c-4bc2-9475-6b4686a30f90 /var -t btrfs -o rw,relatime,space_cache,noatime,compress=lzo,autodefrag,subvol=var ; ignore_errors=no ; start_time=[Thu 1970-01-01 01:00:07 CET] ; stop_time=[Thu 1970-01-01 01:00:07 CET] ; pid=141 ; code=exited ; status=32 }
Slice=system.slice
ControlGroup=/system.slice/var.mount
Delegate=no
CPUAccounting=no
CPUShares=18446744073709551615
StartupCPUShares=18446744073709551615
CPUQuotaPerSecUSec=infinity
BlockIOAccounting=no
BlockIOWeight=18446744073709551615
StartupBlockIOWeight=18446744073709551615
MemoryAccounting=no
MemoryLimit=18446744073709551615
DevicePolicy=auto
UMask=0022
LimitCPU=18446744073709551615
LimitFSIZE=18446744073709551615
LimitDATA=18446744073709551615
LimitSTACK=18446744073709551615
LimitCORE=18446744073709551615
LimitRSS=18446744073709551615
LimitNOFILE=4096
LimitAS=18446744073709551615
LimitNPROC=7329
LimitMEMLOCK=65536
LimitLOCKS=18446744073709551615
LimitSIGPENDING=7329
LimitMSGQUEUE=819200
LimitNICE=0
LimitRTPRIO=0
LimitRTTIME=18446744073709551615
OOMScoreAdjust=0
Nice=0
IOScheduling=0
CPUSchedulingPolicy=0
CPUSchedulingPriority=0
TimerSlackNSec=50000
CPUSchedulingResetOnFork=no
NonBlocking=no
StandardInput=null
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=inherit
TTYReset=no
TTYVHangup=no
TTYVTDisallocate=no
SyslogPriority=30
SyslogLevelPrefix=yes
SecureBits=0
CapabilityBoundingSet=18446744073709551615
MountFlags=0
PrivateTmp=no
PrivateNetwork=no
PrivateDevices=no
ProtectHome=no
ProtectSystem=no
SameProcessGroup=yes
IgnoreSIGPIPE=yes
NoNewPrivileges=no
SystemCallErrorNumber=0
RuntimeDirectoryMode=0755
KillMode=control-group
KillSignal=15
SendSIGKILL=yes
SendSIGHUP=no
Id=var.mount
Names=var.mount
Requires=-.mount
Wants=system.slice
RequiredBy=systemd-journal-flush.service man-db.service shadow.timer man-db.timer local-fs.target systemd-random-seed.service logrotate.timer systemd-update-utmp.service
Conflicts=umount.target
Before=systemd-journal-flush.service man-db.service shadow.timer man-db.timer local-fs.target systemd-random-seed.service logrotate.timer systemd-update-utmp.service umount.target
After=local-fs-pre.target -.mount systemd-journald.socket system.slice
RequiresMountsFor=/
Documentation=man:fstab(5) man:systemd-fstab-generator(8)
Description=/var
LoadState=loaded
ActiveState=active
SubState=mounted
FragmentPath=/run/systemd/generator/var.mount
SourcePath=/etc/fstab
UnitFilePreset=disabled
InactiveExitTimestamp=Thu 1970-01-01 01:01:11 CET
InactiveExitTimestampMonotonic=71204114
ActiveEnterTimestamp=Thu 1970-01-01 01:01:11 CET
ActiveEnterTimestampMonotonic=71204114
ActiveExitTimestampMonotonic=0
InactiveEnterTimestamp=Thu 1970-01-01 01:00:07 CET
InactiveEnterTimestampMonotonic=7409499
CanStart=yes
CanStop=yes
CanReload=yes
CanIsolate=no
StopWhenUnneeded=no
RefuseManualStart=no
RefuseManualStop=no
AllowIsolate=no
DefaultDependencies=yes
OnFailureJobMode=replace
IgnoreOnIsolate=yes
IgnoreOnSnapshot=no
NeedDaemonReload=no
JobTimeoutUSec=0
JobTimeoutAction=none
ConditionResult=yes
AssertResult=yes
ConditionTimestamp=Thu 1970-01-01 01:00:07 CET
ConditionTimestampMonotonic=7365732
AssertTimestamp=Thu 1970-01-01 01:00:07 CET
AssertTimestampMonotonic=7365738
Transient=no

Booting permanently from external (USB 3 or Thunderbolt) drive?

I'm interested in upgrading my 2010 iMac to one of the new 2012 models, specifically for their USB 3 and Thunderbolt port offerings.
My question is; if I have an external USB 3 or Thunderbolt drive enclosure with an SSD, can I *safely and reliably* boot from this external drive for as long as I own the iMac (ie, never use the 1 TB internal HDD that comes with the iMac)? I'm not interested in Fusion Drive, as I'd rather pay that $250 toward a speedier SSD and external drive that I can own and freely move among different machines.
But I've read different accounts in other forums about the reliability of using USB as your primary external boot source, namely since it relies on the CPU and you'll get slightly diminsihed performance and/or errors over time. Maybe Thunderbolt is the way to go? Any advice on this?
I see posts like this one (http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.ca/2012/10/blacx-5g-usb-30-update-fastest-usb -30.html) and it gives me hope, but I don't want to have to deal with random crashes attributable solely to my use of an external drive as my primary boot source. Is anyone else using this kind of external-only setup, and can you please let me know your thoughts and experiences thus far?
Thanks!

First and foremost: Are you using OPTION to try to select the USB-DVD to boot from?
The MacBook Air has to, and has to place a set of Apple supplied drivers on USB I think or has USB DVD support.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp
one feature Boot Camp Assistant has been broken never worked part of 10.6.6, to download drivers to put on CD/USB. So that is 5 months status: broken and unacknowledged officially.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4407
A nice normal walk-thru install, what I think most expect -
http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/15/using-boot-camp-to-install-windows-7-on-you r-mac-the-complete-walkthrough/

Can't boot from my External USB since 10.5.6 Update

Hi to everyone and sorry in advance for my english.
Here's my problem:
I have a copy of Mac OS X in my external USB drive, just for emergency. Two days ago I decided to update the OS, so i reboot my iMac and everythings gone in the right way. So the disk had no problems.
I run Software update and I downloaded a 377 MB Update (from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6). The installation was successful and the iMac reboot. After first reboot I had a second reboot and now it happend. My screen is still grey with the apple logo and the black wheel that keep rollin'. The hard disk seems to be freezed.
Someone knows if there's something i can do?? I don't wanna reinstall Mac OS.
Thanks. Andrea.

Restart, holding down the OPTION key until the icons start showing up on the screen. When the spinning gear stops, select the internal HD, and click arrow underneath. That should boot the machine with the internal HD. From there you can run Disk Utility on the USB HD. By the way, your English is fine.

Why no firewire support for new iPods?

If firewire is so much better and faster why did the geniuses at Apple decide to discontinue support for it? It took me over 30 minutes to upload music & videos to my new iPod w/ USB, which would have taken 5-10 minutes with Firewire. I don't get it!

They did it because they obviously didn't see the need for it.
Either you have a usb 1.1 port, or have about 500mb of music. The speeds aren't that different between USB2.0 and FW. In fact, i think USB is faster. Stop complaining here, this is only a user-user support forum.

Boot Camp For Lion -- USB ISO Method --"Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR"

Hello, has anyone had experience with dealing with this speciifc problem?
In short, upon rebooting, I am getting a black screen with a line of text that says, "Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR." Nothing happens after that.
I am using Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4. I have an ISO of Windows 7 Prof. along with an 8GB usb drive. I changed the coding in my bootcamp program to allow for the normally first invisible option that allows creation of a USB Installation program using an ISO that is normally only for computers without an optical drive.
I have that box checked, the check for new software box, and the install windows box checked. I went through the process of creating the USB, downloading the software, and partitioning the drive. Then on restart, I get the failed to load bootmgr error.
Some people have suggested using two usb drives for this. I am trying that method but it does not seem to help thus far.
Can anyone offer any help?
Thanks.

from what i understand you are trying to install win 8 pro from a "backup disk" the one that you purchased from microsoft.
this will not work, it is not an installer disk.
you need to start the process again. erase the partition you made on your hdd. in disc utility click the minus button after selecting the bootcamp partition, then manually drag the divider down fully then apply.
next, erase your usb then format it.
download win 8 iso from here;
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/download-windows-8-pro/
it is perfectly legal to use your purchased product key in this install.
in bootcamp select the iso image you just downloaded, select your preferred partition size, check all 3 options.
you have the support software on another usb but you wont need it so it can be discarded. the install will work far better with the iso and support on the same drive.

Booting os from External usb hd problem

First i tried firewire, i found the partitions and could make new ones, but when i started to copy windows files the instalation refused to go on. Ok so i tried the usb port, i could now copy all the windows files, the pc rebooted and the xp logo was turning up as it supose to but right when the main instalation was supose to start i get a nice bluescreen instead, telling me my hard disk is corrupt, that is not true, checked it sevral times, tried to reinstall only to have the same problem again (also went into bios and tried diff settings with the usb hardisk boot etc)
Im positiv that this should work, im so close but what im i missing to get to install my xp on external usb hardisk controller?
i use kn8 platinium with all the newest drivers and bios flash.
Thankful for any sugestion or reply!!
Edit: i want i dual boot as i run xp on my internal hardisk.

But i should work, heard many that pulled this off.Ii think that if you could have a portable bootable external hardisk, it would be perfect for bringing home the exact system from work (when you have similar or exact same specs on your pc). Well no matter what my reasons should be i want to pull this off
And i dont think Xp is the problem, the last thing i tried was setting the usb disk active from managment, but that didnt work either. If anyone have any info at all i would gladly take it.

Why no boot support for external USB HDs?

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