How to load an operating system into a removable hard disk

1, testing whether the installation conditions

In the production of mobile hard disk boot system, first of all to detect the motherboard of their own host to support the mobile hard disk boot, the following methods: Power-on startup Press F2 or Del key, into the BIOS settings. After you open the Advanced BIOS Features setting entry, locate the "One Boot Device" subkey to see if the "USB-HDD" (USB removable hard drive) startup option is available. If you have this option, it means your motherboard can support a USB removable hard drive to boot the system.

2. Write bootable information for removable hard disk

If your mobile hard drive fails to boot to the DOS system in the above test, your mobile hard drive does not support the USB-HDD boot feature. Don't worry, this doesn't mean you can't make it, we can use the Third-party software usboot and PartitionMagic to write boot information for the mobile hard drive.

Connect the removable hard disk under Windows XP system, start the Usboot program, and see the model of the removable hard disk in the list. Select the mobile hard drive, click "Click here to select the mode of work", select "HDD Mode" in the pop-up menu. Then click the "Start" button to do the operation. A prompt warning pops up and the software begins to write information about the USB hard drive. Unplug the removable hard drive when prompted "Please unplug the U disk". Then the program prompts "please plug in the U disk again", you need to connect the mobile hard disk to the host again, so that the software will write to the USB hard disk startup information, and prompts the operation successfully.

Because Usboot has some compatibility issues with large USB removable drives, you need to use PartitionMagic 8.0来 to fix the partitions. After the PartitionMagic is started, the software automatically prompts for a partition error on the USB hard drive and asks if it needs to be repaired, and PartitionMagic will automatically fix the partition after it is identified. When finished, right click on the partition list labeled "Usbhdd-boot" section, select the pop-up menu command "Convert →fat32", the command, and then click the window in the lower left corner of the "Application" button, PartitionMagic started on the USB hard drive operation. The final program prompts you to reboot your computer and select "Yes" to restart your computer.

3, Division system installation Partition

There is still a lot of space on the removable hard disk that has not been allocated after writing boot information for the removable hard drive. You can open the "control Panel → management tools → Computer Management" item, expand the "storage → hard drive Management" subkey, right-click on unallocated space, select "Create" from the pop-up menu, and follow the prompts to complete the partitioning and formatting. When you are working, it is a good idea to separate a system partition to install the Windows XP system, while the other partitions are used to store the data. When the partition is completed, right click on the first system partition, select the pop-up menu "the hard disk partition marked as active" command, you can use the partition boot system. During the operation, it is important to remember to mark the system partition as active in the Disk Management tool, otherwise the normal boot operation will not be possible after the Windows XP system is installed.

4. Install Windows XP on the mobile hard drive

Now we have to install the Windows XP system on the mobile hard drive, and the installation method is almost no different from the operation on the normal hard disk, but it should be noted that the first boot device is set to "CD-ROM" boot in the BIOS before installation. After booting with the Windows XP installation CD, select the disk character to install the Windows XP system as the removable hard disk system partition, and then the installer can begin copying the installation files. When the copy file is finished, Windows XP installer will request that the system be restarted, that the BIOS be restarted after the reboot, and that the "device" be set to "USB-HDD" to boot so that the mobile hard drive boot system can be used and the installation of Windows XP will be completed.

When you select a Windows XP system installation partition, some removable hard disks may cause incompatibilities, and Windows XP installer prompts you not to install on the partition. When you encounter this type of problem, consider using the "Windows XP Universal Ghost" installation CD-ROM available online and use the Ghost program to install the system for your mobile hard drive, thereby skipping the Windows XP partition detection process.

After you have successfully installed your Windows XP system on your mobile hard disk, be aware that it can only be used on computers that are on your computer or on the same hardware configuration. You can install the Windows 98 system if you want to be able to use it on all computers. If you are interested, you can even install a dual system on a mobile hard drive, add a DOS boot mode, or join a DOS key recovery function. With a mobile hard drive with Windows XP systems, you can make data backups, fast recovery systems, disk Management, and more arbitrary.