No matter what I try I cannot get VISTA to reconize a partition on an external USB drive. The partition is always displayed as UNAVAILABLE. Even, though I can hit F10 and use DISKPART to create and format it still will not reconize the partition. Do I need a special driver
Scott Pfaf
Installing VISTA on a USB Hard Drive
John Blackman
Yes i have one. there is going too be a good explanation how to do it soon see in youtube serch for install vista on usb
daniboy120
Katrin
How would you go about doing that. i have a laptop that was running vista ultimate before it crashed and tore up the internal drive. i have a 60gb Maxtor usb HD. if anyone can help me with this then send an email to cloudmaxier@gmail.com
Thnx
Paul P Clement IV
Please refer to this link
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx PostID=142703#142703
drewdown
I agree it should be simple to boot Vista from USB. Some people have managed to even get XP to do this (They say, I could not get it to work but I skipped a step or two in their instructions).
More information is on the "booting from usb stick" thread, which atleast partially applies to USB HDD also.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx PostID=142703#142703
m.lib
suhalka
Anybody ever make this work
I get exactly the same behaviour, Vista (and Windows XP) can see the partition(s) on the external USB2.0 drive (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp DriveID=106). Vista and XP can both delete and add partitions (using the command prompt in Vista). But NEITHER can install any files.
Vista just says 'unavailable' next to the partition and suggests I make the drive available in the BIOS. BIOS doesn't have an settings for USB drives, listing only the SATA and ATA drives.
XP says its not able to connect to the drive (which is odd since I just removed and added a partition) and is unable to continue.
I've tried putting some files on it - didn't work, tried putting XP on it (see above - won't do an install).
The only setting in the BIOS is to choose to boot from it, but of course since there is no OS on the drive that doesn't work.
I wondered if there was a driver needed similar to SCSI drives. So I pressed advanced and put in the CD that came with the drive. Vista declared that there were no drivers on the CD (there are, but I assume they are XP drivers)
So I'm looking for suggestions.
Toronto Media Tech
Trying installating a previous OS, such as XP, and then using the Windows Interface to initiate the install.
I've found that sometimes it wont work it there is no data on the disk. It may work.. then again may not.
Good Luck!
bosseman
You cant Install VISTA or XP to USB HDD, just becouse OS think that USB in install time is read only device =)
You need to modify USB drivers if you want to get it working...