Using an SD card to install?

alphanumeric · 13 Nov 2014

True, but USB 2.0 is rated for 35 MB/s and my flash card is rated for 30B/s. It shouldn't be all that slower than a USB 2 thumb drive. My guess is the USB card reader is the weak link. It's USB 2 compatible. I haven't used these SD cards all that much so its hard to say without benchmarking how fast or slow they are. My gut feeling was it was slower than a thumb drive. For reads anyway.
I have 2 USB 3 ports on my laptop, but that's about it. Its USB 2 only on my older desktop PC's. I have one USB 3 thumb drive, a 64 gig Kingston Hyper X. I had intended to use that for a Windows to Go setup but its not a certified drive. That's for another thread though, don't want to drag this one off topic.

AddRAM · 13 Nov 2014

Wynona said:

AddRAM said:

Your title is Using an SD card to install?

But then you ask if you can use it as a boot drive, sooo which is it ?

I don't have a problem with what the OP is trying to say. He's a junior member which may or may not mean he's not as experienced as you or I.

We're here to help, not to pick apart the questions.

I`m here to help to, so the question still stands, Does the OP want to use the SD card to install windows on a system (which I have tested and done) or does he want to install windows on the SD card to boot and run the operationg sysytem from ?

AddRAM · 14 Nov 2014

alphanumeric said:

AddRAM said:

Your title is Using an SD card to install?

But then you ask if you can use it as a boot drive, sooo which is it ?

He said boot drive, but my interpretation is he meant bootable drive, like a bootable thumb drive. For installation purposes.

I've tried it on my laptop but the internal card reader does not show up in the boot selection list.

That`s what I was thinking to, according to his title, but I didn`t want to assume anything. Yes we had a lengthy thread about this already and yes it can be done, I made Windows 7 SD install cards a long time ago that work perfectly.

jimbo45 · 19 Nov 2014

Hi there

Confirming it works just fine if you use a separate USB==>micro SDHC adapter -- the PNY one works just fine -- my BIOS finds it as "Generic USB==>Micro SDHC" and it's just as fast if not faster than a "Classic" Flash drive.

Note though the adapter is tiny - about the size of those micro wireless mice receivers. !!! So you can lose it easily if not kept in the computer.

In UK costs around 4GBP (Inc VAT so if you don't pay UK VAT deduct 20%). The bottom image is just the cover when you remove the adapter (ist image). The Micro sdhc card slides into the Grey part. I use this too for watching some movies - Decent BD rips are about 1.8GB even at 1080p so I can store a few movies on these micro SDHC cards and play them either on a Laptop or Tablet or Phone !!!!.

Great for travelling and watching a few movies without lugging around extra HDD's !!!! or when using company laptops where you can't store / download movies on the laptop's HDD / SSD..

I have a Linux SUSE KDE system on an 8GB Micro SDHC card which boots just fine too using this PNY adapter.

32 GB micro SDHC card works fine -- also for WINDOWS TO GO system - but for this you are better using an external SSD IMO.

If your BIOS doesn't recognize the device - then NO BOOT. Internal card readers usually aren't recognized by the BIOS but USB devices are and the PNY device obviously has it's own firmware in the device so the BIOS just sees it as a standard USB device which works just fine.

Cheers
jimbo

CountMike · 29 Nov 2014

Just yesterday I installed Win 8.1 on Lenovo, low end laptop using just SD card thru it's slot. It worked just fine, showed up in BIOS as SD-HDD as a boot option.

LilRodney456 · 26 Aug 2016

CountMike said:

Just yesterday I installed Win 8.1 on Lenovo, low end laptop using just SD card thru it's slot. It worked just fine, showed up in BIOS as SD-HDD as a boot option.

i was wondering if was possible to turn a micro SD card into a bootable drive to be able to boot kali linux from windows and is it possible to partition a micro sd card

CountMike · 26 Aug 2016

Don't know about Kali but Mint did work. You can partition SD cards but no guarantee all would be seen.

LilRodney456 · 26 Aug 2016

so if i was to partition my sd card and make that partition bootable via usb would that work?

CountMike · 26 Aug 2016

Same tools as for USB cards should work on SD cards.

LilRodney456 · 26 Aug 2016

ok awesome im about to put my sd card in a usb card reader and see where i can get from there appreciate then info and will let u know if it works ive been able to do it with jump drives i just havent tried a micro sd yet and my jump drive is MIA and i miss my linux lol