Add USB UEFI HDD as second bootable drive?

Steve2Q · 03 Apr 2018

Not sure if this is the correct forum, but here goes. My MOBO died in the small computer I use to control my Ham Radio Gear. I went out and got a cheap replacement (HP Pavilion 570-p017c) which came with Win10 Home and a 1 TB HDD formatted in GPT (only 2 SATA ports..other is for the DVD writer).. Just for fun, I took the old HD (formatted as MBR with Win10 Pro) and replaced the new drive, (I had to change to Legacy to get it to boot), and it worked just fine. I then decided to change the old drive to GPT and again, it was painless and it boots fine under the EUFI settings. Then I assumed (incorrectly?) that I can use the new drive in a USB docking station as a secondary boot drive. I have been unable to make this work under every configuration of the Boot Order and Secure Boot menus I can think of. So far, I can only boot successfully with the old drive and use the new one as a second storage drive. I have included the following screen shot of Disk Manager where I see that the partitioning is different on the drives. Disk 0 is the repartioned old drive, while Disk 2 is the unchanged original new drive. Can this be the problem? Thanks for any help.

Add USB UEFI HDD as second bootable drive?-dmgr.png

Steve

Samuria · 03 Apr 2018

As far as I am aware you can't boot from USB only win10 setup can be booted from USB win7 was the same by default it was set not to boot from USB

Access Denied · 03 Apr 2018

Samuria said:

As far as I am aware you can't boot from USB only win10 setup can be booted from USB win7 was the same by default it was set not to boot from USB

Correct. Windows will not boot from a USB drive to run. Like you said, setup and recovery are the only options with USB. I read this in Macrium imaging section but already knew it from years back.

Steve2Q · 04 Apr 2018

Samuria and Access Denied: Thank you both for replying. Saves me spending more time trying to do something that apparently cant be done...

Steve

AndreTen · 04 Apr 2018

Samuria said:

As far as I am aware you can't boot from USB only win10 setup can be booted from USB win7 was the same by default it was set not to boot from USB

Access Denied said:

Correct. Windows will not boot from a USB drive to run. Like you said, setup and recovery are the only options with USB. I read this in Macrium imaging section but already knew it from years back.

And where do linux live, Macrium boot, Kyhi's rescue etc fit?

And one more thing for the OP: ditch that DVD writer, and put hard disk on SATA...

cereberus · 04 Apr 2018

Access Denied said:

Correct. Windows will not boot from a USB drive to run. Like you said, setup and recovery are the only options with USB. I read this in Macrium imaging section but already knew it from years back.

This is 100% incorrect. Of course you can boot from a usb drive, even a flash drive. It is called Windows To Go.

You can use UEFI Boot Manager, Windows To Go Creator, Free Data Recovery, Windows Deployment Tool to create a bootable version of windows on a usb flash drive or hdd.

cereberus · 04 Apr 2018

Steve2Q said:

Samuria and Access Denied: Thank you both for replying. Saves me spending more time trying to do something that apparently cant be done...

Steve

Of course it can be done very easily.
Use wintousb from http://www.easuefi.com

cereberus · 04 Apr 2018

AndreTen said:

And where do linux live, Macrium boot, Kyhi's rescue etc fit?

And one more thing for the OP: ditch that DVD writer, and put hard disk on SATA...

Macrium Boot and Kyhi's Rescue drives are winpe environments designed to boot from US.

As I say in other replies, you can easily boot FULL Windows from a usb drive using wintousb from UEFI Boot Manager, Windows To Go Creator, Free Data Recovery, Windows Deployment Tool (Rufus can do it as well afaik).

Since 1703, you can even boot in uefi mode on a removable flash drive as well as Windows now supports multiple partitions on removeable flash drives.

AndreTen · 04 Apr 2018

cereberus said:

Macrium Boot and Kyhi's Rescue drives are winpe environments designed to boot from US.

As I say in other replies, you can easily boot FULL Windows from a usb drive using wintousb from UEFI Boot Manager, Windows To Go Creator, Free Data Recovery, Windows Deployment Tool (Rufus can do it as well afaik).

Since 1703, you can even boot in uefi mode on a removable flash drive as well as Windows now supports multiple partitions on removeable flash drives.

Was just going to add info about Windows to go :)... but you've already said it all

Makeuseof have a nice tutorial

i would still put that drive on SATA, instead of DVD

athman8 · 05 Apr 2018

I can't seem to narrow down what I need to get a fresh install of Windows 10 on my laptop. Brief history:-Bought HP G7-2235dx for my wife.-She hated windows 8-I formatted the hard drive, set Bios to Legacy mode, install fresh Windows 7-I upgraded it to windows 10 but can't use Uefi nowSo at this point I want to install a fresh copy of windows 10 in Uefi mode. The PC will not recognize the hard drive without Legacy mode enable. It also will not recognize the disk drive I am guessing because I have set it to UEFI mode and arranged boot priority and it does not find it.I can turn on Legacy mode but I am guessing that if I install windows 10 again while in Legacy mode I will be right back where I started.How do I allow myself to turn on UEFI, and have the HDD and the internal disk drive visable at this point?Any help would be appreciated.Thanks!