External USB boot without Windows2Go

cereberus said:

You do not need the MSR partition, only the EFI and C drive OS partition,

You can do it all from disk management instead of using diskpart if you like.

delete existing volumes

convert drive to gpt

create new voulme fat32 size 100 MB

create new volume ntfs - rest of drive

Hi there
I tried that first but then I couldn't get to the "NEXT screen" It wouldn't recognize boot partition !!!!

maybe my currently installed OS is "funny" --- I'm running Insider build 17746 - I'm going to use the USB drive so I can have this on real hardware for testing and run the standard OS on the main computer.

VM's are 100% fine for testing some things but sometimes you actually need to try stuff on real hardware !!!..

Actually it's an SSD connected to the computer via SATA-->USB3 adapter. Works fine - performance more than adequate --even got 2 VM's running on it as well. Computer boots from USB3 port without issues.

@alphanumeric

In theory it should work on a thumbdrive - but IMO performance might be wonky - also not sure if USB thumb drives are geared up for excessive numbers of read / writes as per a normal OS. If you just want a recovery option I'd go for something like KYHI's disk on a thumb drive.

Also if you do have the Enterprise version you can install Windows to go legally on it WITHOUT having to use a certified drive

I think a long time ago I posted how to do it probably on the W7 Forum (same user ID) so just search on that.

I remember running W7 Enterprise on an external SSD via USB adapter and it worked fine if I remember -- Office though was fussy if running on a different machine --kept wanting activation --OPK as I Had a VL version - but rather mitigates the point of it if you can't use it on different machines without hassle. The Digital activation though seems fine with current version being booted on different machines provided windows was already activated on them.

This is for W8 but it should work for W10 too I don't have enterprise so I can't test. The WintoUSB though works.

Creating a Non-Certified Windows To Go USB Drive ADMIN Magazine

Cheers
jimbo

alphanumeric said:

Will that work on a thumb drive thats set as removable media?

Yes - ever since 1703 introduced the ability to handle multiple partitions on a removable flash drive.

In 1703, you had to use diskpart commands to prepare the two necessary partitions.

From 1709 you can use disk management as well.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
I tried that first but then I couldn't get to the "NEXT screen" It wouldn't recognize boot partition !!!!

maybe my currently installed OS is "funny" --- I'm running Insider build 17746 - I'm going to use the USB drive so I can have this on real hardware for testing and run the standard OS on the main computer.

VM's are 100% fine for testing some things but sometimes you actually need to try stuff on real hardware !!!..

Actually it's an SSD connected to the computer via SATA-->USB3 adapter. Works fine - performance more than adequate --even got 2 VM's running on it as well. Computer boots from USB3 port without issues.

@alphanumeric

In theory it should work on a thumbdrive - but IMO performance might be wonky - also not sure if USB thumb drives are geared up for excessive numbers of read / writes as per a normal OS. If you just want a recovery option I'd go for something like KYHI's disk on a thumb drive.

Also if you do have the Enterprise version you can install Windows to go legally on it WITHOUT having to use a certified drive

I think a long time ago I posted how to do it probably on the W7 Forum (same user ID) so just search on that.

I remember running W7 Enterprise on an external SSD via USB adapter and it worked fine if I remember -- Office though was fussy if running on a different machine --kept wanting activation --OPK as I Had a VL version - but rather mitigates the point of it if you can't use it on different machines without hassle. The Digital activation though seems fine with current version being booted on different machines provided windows was already activated on them.

This is for W8 but it should work for W10 too I don't have enterprise so I can't test. The WintoUSB though works.

Creating a Non-Certified Windows To Go USB Drive ADMIN Magazine

Cheers
jimbo

You could always create a bootable flash drive on a non certified drive pre. 170 but it had to be legacy bios.

You could not easily create a uefi boot drive until 1703, as you needed fat32 partition as well as the NTFS partition

cereberus said:

Yes - ever since 1703 introduced the ability to handle multiple partitions on a removable flash drive.

In 1703, you had to use diskpart commands to prepare the two necessary partitions.

From 1709 you can use disk management as well.

Cool, thanks.

I have just installed version 4.1 of wintousb. It is really cool - you no longer have to prepare flash drives with partitions up front.

I started off with an mbr flash drive of a single partition as below



I fired up wintosub, selected iso, version to install from iso, and flash drive as target, and it comes up with this new screen



I clicked on GPT for UEFI and it then formatted the flash drive as GPT with the NTFS and fat32 partitions automatically (slightly odd as it puts EFI at end but that is not important).

I then clicked legacy (this is a little confusing as wintousb originally could only create legacy bios installs which could be all the files on the drive, or inside a bootable vhd - when they introduced UEFI, they did not change the description). In any case, you cannot select vhds on free version with UEFI, so legacy is only selectable option.



I then clicked next, and it is now installing.

No preparation is needed any more - it really could not be much simpler now - no disk management or diskpart commmands!

I intend to prepare a tutorial for this now.

Perked my interest to where I actually want to give this another try. Have to wake up first, only 5 AM here. Maybe after my morning walk. Thanks for the new info.

jimbo45 said:

Hi folks
Works a treat

Thanks for the update. I'm testing SKIPPY on this -- I need real hardware but dislike setting up internal HDD's for dual booting etc. Have the build on SSD connected to machine via SATA-->USB3 port (have enough USB 3 ports).

Even can run 2 VM's on this with perfectly acceptable response -- in fact I think this system is faster than the standard Windows running from an internal HDD (non SSD).

I've got a eSATA controller card so I might attach the SSD via SATA-->eSATA connector -- be interesting to see then if windows treats that as an "Internal device" in which case I'll just install windows on it and unplug device when not needed. I think the eSATA supplies the power to the external device from the mobo bus - manual for the card in Chinese so I'll just have to test.

The main problem also running insider builds on your main machine is that you can't "Unjoin" the program any more until the next public release of Windows - the only way then is to restore a previous Macrium image - but that could be several updates ago. Being able to just unplug the SSD and boot from the normal current Windows seems the easiest by far option if you aren't running insider builds on VM's.

Cheers
jimbo

Regrettably, you cannot upgrade builds on a usb flash drive (not tried for a while), so wintousb is mostly suitable for clean installs.