Installing Vista on a Portable HD

[^^ CoolMacLover]

How would I be able to install Windows Vista on a portable hard drive?

And dont you dare say google it, i have and none of it made any sense to me!

 

[Hellhammer]

Boot from the install disk and select the external HD as the target of installation, not that hard

 

[balamw]

Boot from the install disk and select the external HD as the target of installation, not that hard

Since when does that work?

Simply put. You can't install Windows on an external/removable drive without it getting messy by design.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938984

This issue occurs because the Windows Vista installation must be able to write to the boot volume of the computer, and the boot volume must be non-removable to prevent later removal of the boot device. If the boot device were removed, this would make it impossible for Windows Vista to start. A computer is restarted several times during installation. Because the BIOS reports the USB device as the boot device, and the USB device is removable, Windows Vista Installation cannot continue. This is by design.

B

 

[Hellhammer]

Since when does that work?

Simply put. You can't install Windows on an external/removable drive without it getting messy by design.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938984



B

Whaaaaat? LOL! Does that apply to 7 too?

 

[balamw]

Whaaaaat? LOL! Does that apply to 7 too?

No version of Windows supports being installed to and booted from a removable drive out of the box.

B

 

[^^ CoolMacLover]

So, please explain for the slow guy.

Can it, or can it not be done?

 

[Bengt77]

It seems that it can not be done. Sorry.

 

[GidbinN]

It seems bootcamp and time machine storage cannot be based on external hard drive.

But you can run your virtual machine (parallel desktop) on an external.

or not,
good luck 🙂

 

[old-wiz]

time machine storage cannot be based on external hard drive.

??? Time machine , unless on a MacPro, only works on external hard drives. There would be little point in putting the time machine stuff on the internal HD; what if you lose your boot drive? you would also lose your time machine.