Question Booting Windows 7 clone drive from USB Enclosure

[jyates]

I'm trying to boot windows 7 from a USB enclosure with a SSD hard drive cloned from my operating system on it. I've got my boot order set in the bios with USB Device as being the only choice of boot item. And as it starts to boot the screen says "starting windows" and then it reboots in an endless loop of doing the same thing time and time again. The SSD drive has a clone of my operating system.

I can take the SSD drive out of the enclosure and hook it up to the internal sata cable in the computer and it will boot up and run fine all day long.

I've used 2 different programs to make the clone of the drive. Acronis True Image and AOMEI Backupper are their names.

Any ideas on where I'm going wrong?

 

[mikeymikec]

I'd press F8 the moment before Windows starts to get up the early startup menu, then choose the option to disable auto reboot on system failure, then I'd bet a decent sum that Windows is BSOD'ing citing "INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE" because it's connected via USB and not SATA as it expects to be.

As for how to achieve Windows booting a normal Windows session from a USB device, I have no idea and I've never tried it.

 

[jyates]

I believe on this Dell computer you press F12 to enter the bios setup. The clone to the SSD was made via the USB Cable and if you take the SSD out of the enclosure and put it inside the computer it will boot up and run just fine. I figured there was a way to make it boot from the USB enclosure.

 

[mikeymikec]

The F8 business is to access Win7's early startup menu. At the point where the BIOS hands off to the OS to start booting, I normally press F8 once per second before it says "Starting Windows", then the Win7 startup menu appears.

The timing is sometimes tricky because for example with an Asus board F8 during the BIOS stage produces the boot menu.

 

[Steltek]

I think you can do it on Win8 or higher more easily (they have that Windows to Go feature), but Win7 is problematic as it really wasn't designed to boot from an external drive. I've seen it done, but it is really hit and miss.

 

[jyates]

Thanks for the explanation for the pressing F8 when I see "windows is starting" I tried it but nothing happened. It just says "windows is starting" and then blinks off and goes back to doing the same thing in an endless loop. Maybe this can't be done with windows 7 ? I've read several helps on the web but they all act like once you have a cloned drive you just set up the bios to book from usb external and you are home free....but it's not so in my case apparently.

 

[mikeymikec]

just before you see 'windows starting'.

 

[jyates]

Yes sir tried it that way but got no results.

 

[mikeymikec]

Just so you know I'm not winding you up:

 

[jyates]

Never doubted you bud! It just didn't happen for me!

 

[mikeymikec]

USB keyboard on an old computer by any chance?

 

[jyates]

About 6 years old but the KB connector is PS2 type. My Mouse and printers are USB.

 

[mikeymikec]

About 6 years old but the KB connector is PS2 type. My Mouse and printers are USB.

That's fine. I was just wondering if you were experiencing an old problem; old computers had a setting in the BIOS that's usually labelled something like 'USB legacy hardware support' IIRC which would allow USB keyboards and mice to work before the OS provided support for them. If the option was disabled, then accessing the BIOS or pressing F8 for early Win7 startup with a USB keyboard wouldn't work. As you say, you've got a PS/2 keyboard so it can't be that.

None of this of course has nothing to do with why Windows won't boot.

 

[jyates]

I double checked and the hard drive will boot up windows fine while it's connected to the sata cable on the MB but it just won't ever boot up while in the enclosure plugged into the usb port. I read somewhere that maybe other usb devices like usb printers and the such might be a problem but I haven't tried unplugging the 2 usb printers attached to the machine yet.

 

[jyates]

I unplugged everything USB except for the mouse and that made no change. I've registered the software with AOMEI Technology and will ask their tech support as to what they know about the situation.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Normally, Windows will NOT boot off of USB. You either need to modify the OS / bootfiles / .INF files, to get it to do so, or use Win8.1 / Win10 Enterprise, to make a "Win to Go" USB stick. A normal internal SATA install, cloned to a USB device, will NOT boot. (*) You're jousting at Windmills.

(*) As I understand it, Windows was in fact, specifically designed to NOT do this. MS wants Windows installs to be tied to internal storage devices, not portable ones, for licensing reasons. They want to sell Windows Licenses, and they want them "tied" to motherboards, via an internal (SATA/NVMe/PCI-E) storage device.

OTOH, Linux has no such restrictions.

 

[jyates]

Thanks....I got an email from AOMEI this morning telling me the very same thing. With Windows 7 professional being my OS the Wintogo won't work either.
It's been a learning experience for sure.