Windows on an External Drive

[amack]

Hi all,

Earlier this week my laptop packed in, when it starts to begin booting Windows it tells me the file windows/system/ntfs.sys cannot be found. I've tried the backup CD to restore the system, but it comes up with errors too.

My laptop manufacturer (Rock Direct) will take it back and repair it for me, but before I send it off I want to try and rescue my data. I've got an external USB hard drive - is there any way to install windows onto it, then use it to boot into the system and access the hard drive to copy files across?

Is these a possible work around?

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[Berserker]

Not sure if Windows setup supports USB enough to do that, and your system would have to support booting from USB too, which is often easier said than done. Someone may have some ideas though.

If not, using a Linux LiveCD would work if you're up to a bit of learning. Make sure it's one that supports NTFS though (and you'll have to write the files out to a FAT32 partition or USB pen drive, as Linux doesn't support writing to NTFS).

If you need advice on going this route, I'm sure the people over in the Linux forum can help you out.

 

[|Ric|]

You could get hold of Windows Ultimate Boot CD, essentially the windows equivalent of a linux live cd.
I am not certain it has USB support but it ought to.