Hi,
I have a brand new laptop running Vista at work.
I wish to use this hardware at home without using/messing around with the main HDD.
So I was hoping to install a windows 7 on an eSATA SSD Drive and then simply set BIOS boot order to 1) eSATA and 2) HDD so I can just boot up in W7 if eSATA is hooked up or boot in Vista otherwise.
Here's what I've done so far:
- physically removed the internal HDD (to be safe)
- boot from Seven install CD
- it can select my eSATA SDD and install Seven - no problem at all
- it boots into Seven and actually works fine and REALLY fast, yay!
- next step of the plan was to put the original HDD back inside, set boot priorities, and configure Seven to hide and lock the internal HDD (as I said, I don't wan't to mess with the "work" configuration and don't wan't any crap on it).
Problem is:
Once the HDD is back inside, there is no way to set the BIOS to boot from eSATA...
Every setting I tried keeps booting from the internal HDD.
The only way to boot my external Seven install is by removing the internal drive...
That's when EasyBCD kicked in!
I launched the app in Vista and added an entry for Seven, choosing the drive letter pointing towards the Seven 100MB boot partition.
Boot up again and have both entries allright, but when I select Seven I get a Windows error message.
It's similar to the screen you get when you're booting after a brutal shutdown except I don't have the option to load windows normally... (The original Vista entry works fine)
Any idea how can I get EasyBCD to launch the eSATA's OS?
If not I'll probably have to look into some sort of grub loader booting from Flash USB and launching the eSATA, or such but I'd rather have something "clean and simple"...
PS: I used to have a tweaked windows XP booting from external USB drive on my previous W2K work laptop, and it worked like a charm. All i had to do was set "boot from usb" in BIOS...
Addendum:
I can get it to work with supergrubdisk.
There's not much to it, just had to change:
I don't wan't to physically install GRUB on the internal HDD.
So i have to boot from a grub Live CD to launch from eSATA...
Well at least there are no screwdrivers involved in switching from one to another now...
I have a brand new laptop running Vista at work.
I wish to use this hardware at home without using/messing around with the main HDD.
So I was hoping to install a windows 7 on an eSATA SSD Drive and then simply set BIOS boot order to 1) eSATA and 2) HDD so I can just boot up in W7 if eSATA is hooked up or boot in Vista otherwise.
Here's what I've done so far:
- physically removed the internal HDD (to be safe)
- boot from Seven install CD
- it can select my eSATA SDD and install Seven - no problem at all
- it boots into Seven and actually works fine and REALLY fast, yay!
- next step of the plan was to put the original HDD back inside, set boot priorities, and configure Seven to hide and lock the internal HDD (as I said, I don't wan't to mess with the "work" configuration and don't wan't any crap on it).
Problem is:
Once the HDD is back inside, there is no way to set the BIOS to boot from eSATA...
Every setting I tried keeps booting from the internal HDD.
The only way to boot my external Seven install is by removing the internal drive...
That's when EasyBCD kicked in!
I launched the app in Vista and added an entry for Seven, choosing the drive letter pointing towards the Seven 100MB boot partition.
Boot up again and have both entries allright, but when I select Seven I get a Windows error message.
It's similar to the screen you get when you're booting after a brutal shutdown except I don't have the option to load windows normally... (The original Vista entry works fine)
Any idea how can I get EasyBCD to launch the eSATA's OS?
If not I'll probably have to look into some sort of grub loader booting from Flash USB and launching the eSATA, or such but I'd rather have something "clean and simple"...
PS: I used to have a tweaked windows XP booting from external USB drive on my previous W2K work laptop, and it worked like a charm. All i had to do was set "boot from usb" in BIOS...
Addendum:
I can get it to work with supergrubdisk.
There's not much to it, just had to change:
to
But still, I'd rather have it work with EasyBCD...
I don't wan't to physically install GRUB on the internal HDD.
So i have to boot from a grub Live CD to launch from eSATA...
Well at least there are no screwdrivers involved in switching from one to another now...
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