Boot from SD card Reader?

Hi there

An even better scenario for you might be to download the ENTERPRISE version of say W10 and create a Windows to Go on an external SSD. Won't take a huge amount of space on the SSD so you could still keep a lot over for your pictures.

You could install say Photoshop on it too -- so if the OS in your laptop became "broken" you could continue working by booting up the Windows to go -- and while working you could run the restore from the Windows to Go SSD. !!

An external SSD running Windows to go works very well indeed (including Photoshop !!).

You don't need a "Certified device to use Windows to go.

Create one manually : (Same instructions whether W8 or W10. W10 is probably the one to use as you can download the ENTERPRISE version free !!.

http://www.admin-magazine.com/Articl...on-a-USB-Drive

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there

Agreed - but the technical challenge was interesting and storing the image on an internal SD card which I rarely use is a good place to ensure it's never lost !! (especially out in the field).

The Windows to Go idea is another matter - I often work in several different countries so it's nice to have my OWN versions of OFFICE etc. On a lot of company / client's laptops you can't usually install your own software so it's quite handy having an alternative possibility - a lot of shops are quite happy at booting up a Windows to Go system even on their own computers.

For recovery a cheap fast USB3 stick of course is probably the best solution !!!.

Cheers
jimbo

A home grown Windows To Go though, especially one that's not Enterprise will likely have activation issues if used on multiple PC's. I say likely because I haven't tested it myself so I'm guessing.

There is one way to avoid any activation problems - that is if you install any Windows under VMware Player. If you then move the VMware Player file to e.g. an external SSD, you can run it on any system that has VMware Player installed. I run 8.1 that way. The activation considers VMware Player as the home system. Besides, it also avoids any driver problems.

Here are 2 videos I made runnung Windows 8 fro VMware Player. The first video shows the operational advantages runnung on my Dell XPS 8300. The second video shows the same system running on a more modest Dell Inspiron 530 from USB2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brhikdjNXIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLmMPqOGv3I

whs said:

A home grown Windows To Go though, especially one that's not Enterprise will likely have activation issues if used on multiple PC's. I say likely because I haven't tested it myself so I'm guessing.

There is one way to avoid any activation problems - that is if you install any Windows under VMware Player. If you then move the VMware Player file to e.g. an external SSD, you can run it on any system that has VMware Player installed. I run 8.1 that way. The activation considers VMware Player as the home system. Besides, it also avoids any driver problems.

Here are 2 videos I made runnung Windows 8 fro VMware Player. The first video shows the operational advantages runnung on my Dell XPS 8300. The second video shows the same system running on a more modest Dell Inspiron 530 from USB2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brhikdjNXIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLmMPqOGv3I

Hi there

Generally true but sometimes OFFICE will ask for a re-activation -- Windows itself manages just fine as does my copy of Photoshop CS6 (the last one before the wretched subscription stuff came out).

I've run the same VM image under both Linux and Windows - no problems 99% of the time -- beware though if you update VMware tools THEN "New hardware" might be recognized.

As always with windows activation - there don't seem to be any standard repeatable rules - especially when Virtual Machines are involved.

Cheers
jimbo

sygnus21 said:

Hey guys/gals, need some help.

We're having a discussion over at DP Review. It's a photography site, but they also have a PC Talk forum. Anyway there's a discussion thread - USB thumb drives vs Card Readers in which we're trying to figure out if Windows will boot from a card reader with a SD card installed?

Basically you install the boot media on the SD card, use a card reader to read and boot from it.

I've never tried or seen this so I may be completely wrong, but I contend that neither Windows nor the BIOS will recognize the card reader as a valid boot drive.

Am I right, wrong? Why?

I'm ADMint over there BTW.

Thanks.

It ultimately will depend on the BIOS / UEFI firmware of your device. I know on my tablet an SD card is bootable only if it is formatted as GPT with an EFI boot partition. Older BIOSes should be fine of it can boot standard MBR formatted disks.

senturion1186 said:

It ultimately will depend on the BIOS / UEFI firmware of your device. I know on my tablet an SD card is bootable only if it is formatted as GPT with an EFI boot partition. Older BIOSes should be fine of it can boot standard MBR formatted disks.

How does someone check in the BIOS if it supports Booting from SD/MicroSD? What do we look for?

Indianatone said:

Plop / Elmar Hanlhofer - Boot Managers (2)
If for whatever reason your bios does not see what you want to boot from this tool will make it bootable.

Great idea, but I guess it has its limitations :)

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

OK that's fine too - but you see what I mean - the OS has to basically load a driver if the device isn't recognized at BIOS power on.

IMO having a small Linux OS to load the drivers and then boot is fine but essentially a "Get around".

You'd still need to run this OS from an EXTERNAL device before the system would boot from say an INTERNAL Card reader so you'd still have to initially plug in a USB stick or other device to get this to boot from an internal SD card. (If you didn't do this and used this program on an internal HDD then it's also "cheating").

With say no HDD in a laptop and just the INTERNAL SD card present can this program boot the computer -- I somehow don't think so. With an HDD in place - then yes it can. I can boot a Linux system from /dev/mmcblk01 (internal sd card) if the bootstrap is read first from the HDD in the laptop - but that's not what I think we are trying to do. !!

What I want someone to do is REMOVE the HDD from a laptop and with ONLY the internal SD card available BOOT the laptop with NO EXTERNAL USB DEVICES connected.

Cheers
jimbo