Installing Vista TO a USB Drive

Badgerpoo

Badgerpoo

Badgerpoo

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I'm trying to install Vista Enterprise to a 16GB USB pen drive. This is for a media PC project that I'm trying to make quiet and light on power usage, hence the lack of real hard drive.

First off, the Vista installer totally refuses to see the USB drive as an option to install to, I think by design. I tried folowing these instructions: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/204022-vista-installed-usb-hard-drive.html to install via a VM, but I get an error when the Vista installer tries to fomat the drive.

Any ideas?
 
I have tried in both FAT32 and NTFS formats.

I tried to format it using the recovery then command prompt options when booting from the Vista Disc. It gives the following error:

"...
Creating file system structures
The second NTFS boot sctor is inwriteable
The first NTFS boot sector is unwriteable
All NTFS boot sectors are unwriteable. Cannot continue.
Format failed."

So I need to create boot sector(s)?
 
Run CMD.EXE and type the following command. Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as “disk 1″. Double check that by doing a list of the disks (type “list disk”) before cleaning it).

1. diskpart
2. select disk 1
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit
 
Hmm the USB drive doesnt appear at all on a "list disk" command, I only get the HDD. Tried ejecting and putting USB drive back in different port and even rebooting.
 
So I manage to do the above on a Vista machine, try and install Vista via a virtual machine again and get the same problem:

vistainstallhg5.jpg
 
it will run horribly if you do get it to run.

30mb/s read speed is shocking!

use a laptop sized hard drive instead, they use the same sata and sata power lead as desktop drives


plus i don't think 16gb is enough space..
and you have to install to NTFS, says in the pic above..


also, why vista enterprise?
 
Last edited:
MivkM said:
Run CMD.EXE and type the following command. Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as “disk 1″. Double check that by doing a list of the disks (type “list disk”) before cleaning it).

1. diskpart
2. select disk 1
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit
Click to expand...

Number 7 on here doesnt seem to work. Keeps telling me that no volume was selected.
 
That isn't the issue. When Vista is trying to format the drive TO NTFS it fails in the above manner. I have tried it with the drive previously formatted as NTFS and the same error occurred.
 
When attempting a proper install Vista will not allow you to install to a USB device, VMWare is the workaround. Trying to format in a different way at the mo and see what that does...
 
Badgerpoo said:
When attempting a proper install Vista will not allow you to install to a USB device, VMWare is the workaround. Trying to format in a different way at the mo and see what that does...
Click to expand...

Hmm. Maybe the device is damaged? Tried a full format / write zeros to it? Surface scan?

or!

Install to a normal drive on the same hardware, image, transfer image to usb?!
 
Badgerpoo said:
When attempting a proper install Vista will not allow you to install to a USB device, VMWare is the workaround. Trying to format in a different way at the mo and see what that does...
Click to expand...

This then I dont understand. I have hundreds of virtual disks on external drives, they are just listed as one file. Are you trying to install it as an actual disk?

Also, where are you hosting the vista install image from? I take it, not the same flash drive you are tyring to write to?
 
Yes it worked! The disk must be flagged a bootable and also in NTFS format before it will work. Vista seems unable to convert it from fat32 to NTFS itself for some reason.

Here is the full story from the beginning to explain what I am trying to do:

I have a PC whose intended use is a media centre. I will be using Media Portal along with other software to run it. I want to base it on Windows Vista to take advantage of the improved (over XP) power management, allowing me to hopefully resume from standby using a remote. I am licensed through work to use Vista Enterprise so am using that. I have a 1TB drive on which to store media, but I would like to run that drive up in my main PC that is on 24/7. I decided to try and run the OS therefore from a flash drive and to stream all media over the network. It is partly out of curiosity about whether it is possible, and how it will perform. Also it means I dont have the hard drive noise to worry about in the living room helping to keep the PC as quiet as possible.
 
Lucero said:
This then I dont understand. I have hundreds of virtual disks on external drives, they are just listed as one file. Are you trying to install it as an actual disk?

Also, where are you hosting the vista install image from? I take it, not the same flash drive you are tyring to write to?
Click to expand...

I'm not using a virtual drive, I'm trying to install Vista to the USB drive itself. When dperforming a normal install without using VMWare at all, Vista will not recognise any USB drive as a suitable install point. My way around this is to use VMWare to make the usb drive appear as a SCSI drive to Vista allowing me to install the OS. I will then move the USB drive back into the computer and have a working operating system!
 
it will perform poorly, since usb is limited to 30mb/s ish..

just get a laptop sata drive, and cut out all the hassle
 
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