win 10 to ssd for virtual machine/box

I am new here, but not to computers. Was the first in my family to get one. This was in the days of DOS "the black screen". If I may, I am wondering about the error you get. "The instruction at 0x00007fff7106F3BC referenced memory at 0x000000000000000. The memory could not be read"

This could mean a lot of things. Try doing a search on google for this, there are a lot of good links to check out. From my past experience with errors, this might be causing your problems. Also, there are utilities you can use to check physical ram memory to make sure everything is good there.

If you can, try installing Windows physically to your external SSD. Don't load it up with programs, just what you need for a fresh install. If it runs good, and you don't get any errors like before on your internal, then some program, or some registry entry likely is corrupted on the internal.

I can understand your frustration with not knowing for sure which drive Windows is being installed to. I think Win 2 USB only installs to a drive connected to a USB port. But just to be sure, you could get another portable SSD to back up your files on your internal Hard Drive.

I just did what you want to do. I installed Windows to my portable one Terabyte SSD (using win 2 usb). After installing, I partitioned the portable into two partitions. One for the operating system, the 2nd for my files. What I plan to do is to make several virtual machines for my programs, then keep my files on the physical drive. This way, if a virtual starts acting up, I can just delete. I don't want to clutter up my physical Windows, this way I can keep things in good order. In the past, I have found that when I run out of memory and everything freezes and I have to reboot, that can create all sorts of problems. Windows doesn't run as smooth as it did before.

So I keep my fresh physical install just that - fresh and minimal. Let the virtuals take the battering, then delete. After a new virtual and some programs installed, I copy the virtual, maybe even zip or rar it up and save to another drive. When I need the same one again, I just make a copy to use.

Of course, I keep my files on the physical drive, and also use the free Macrium Reflect to back up folders of my files.

Here is another thing about files: don't let them scatter. Start with one subfolder off the root drive. I usually name it a.menu.all and off of this I have two subfolders. One for downloads (such as utilities) and another for files, Off of each of these two, I can make as many subfolders as I want. Each download (like Avast) will be D:\a.menu.all\downloads\avast. The only thing to watch out for, Windows doesn't like a long path.

I dont have pro, so I can't use their version of virtual machine. I think my only choice is the version from Oracle.

This is wrong. While it is true that there is no Hyper-V VM feature in Home edition, there are STILL alternatives to Oracle1s VirtualBox. Actually VirtualBox is not very fast. You should choose VMWare Player instead, which is also FREE.
Perhaps even easier to use and you can find video tutorials for it.
So step one is to get rid of Oracle Virtualbox, erase all your attempts, delete wintousb too (I think you're using it wrong, and not needed anyway).
Step two is to download and install VMWare Player and follow its instructions to set up a new virtual machine
You need a Windows 10 Installer ISO for that. If you don't already have one, use the Windows 10 Media Creation tool to download an iso to your desktop. You do not need to burn it to a DVD and you also don't need to write it to any external storage. Just have the iso file on your desktop.
Then launch VMWare Player and with the create new virtual machine feature, use the recommended default settings everywhere (except storage location which you can move to your external disk), just keep hitting next next next, browse for the ISO and set up login credentials, also your serial number if you have any. From this point onwards, VMWare Player will do EVERYTHING for you. It will automatically start up the virtual machine and install the OS into it. You don't have to do anything. A bit later on, you will have a fully functional virtual OS with networking capability and full USB support.

Hyper-V and Oracle's VirtualBox are much more complicated and less user friendly solutions. They are great software as well but for you, VMWare Player is a better choice probably and actually it has far superior performance than VirtualBox.

Hopachi said:

I agree that VMWare Player is easier to use. But Player was in my case slower, not faster, this was a while ago though. Guess I should redo some tests.

This is very strange. VMWare Player, is, technically far superior. You should test again. Not only it is faster but has more capabilities, such as the option to add more video memory, several gigabytes even, while VirtualBox is limited to sloppy 128MB.

This depends on CPU and whatever runs concurrently. For instance, don't run VirtualBox while Hyper-V is active in the first place.

Well yes. You can't really run VirtualBox with Hyper-V Enabled. Well, you kind of can, because it then switches to Hyper-V mode, trying to use Hyper-V as the virtualization engine instead of it's own paravirtualization engine. But this is very experimental in VirtualBox as of yet.
VMWare can do the same but it's better to disable Hyper-V if you want to use any 3rd party tools. Don't forget its not just the Hyper-V role that is using Hyper-V, but there are a lot of optional features which do, such as WSL2. You have to disable those too, if you enabled them. They are not enabled by default.

Last time I've checked there was no speed difference between the two.

VirtualBox is improving too. It is much better than it was years ago.

Long time VirtualBox user here...

it is a nice and easy to use software and very versatile, most of all: open source, so I respect your choice. But still, in some cases, VMWare can provide better performance and compatibility.

Hyper-V outruns them all IF your host OS is Windows.

True - it does, because Hyper-V is Type 1 Virtualization, while all the rest (VMWare and VirtualBox) are Type 2. Meaning that Hyper-V VMs run parallel to the host OS, while Type 2s run inside the host OS. This is a huge performance difference, however there are certain compatibility issues with some usage scenerios (it is not as good as sharing external resources in some cases) and a bit more complicated to set up. Once you get it running, it is great.

oh and you also need Windows 10 Pro for that. For Windows 10 Home, only Type 2 solutions are available, unless you are willing to hack. There is a guide somewhere around here.