Partitioning and booting an OS from an USB HD

Kyral Retsam · 07-28-2004, 03:53 PM

Okay, first things first. I have no clue which forum this should go in because it spans a couple topics.

Now on to the question.

I'm thinking of buying a 120 GB USB HD for my laptop. What I want to know is would it be possible to partition about 20 GBs for Windows XP and install XP on there to have LILO boot to it?

Tinkster · 07-28-2004, 04:03 PM

That depends ...

Prerequisite would be that the machine's BIOS supports
booting of USB. If it doesn't you're at loss.

And then of course whether XP does ;) ... which I don't
know, but then, hey, this is a Linux-forum! :}

To get linux booted of it you'd have to build an initrd
with all the required drivers (both your usb-chipset
support and scsi-support built into the kernel).

In other words: if it DOESN'T work it's not a lilo-problem ;)

Cheers,
Tink

Kyral Retsam · 07-29-2004, 09:11 PM

Well, just checked my boot sequence. My BIOS is set to check for boot from USB last already. So CHECK!
I also know I compiled in USB and SCSI support into my Kernel (modules if not already compiled in).

So, all I need to check is WinXP

Oh, I'm not trying to get Linux to boot from it. I'm just gonna use LILO as the boot loader