XP on External Drive on VISTA laptop in reboot loop

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XP on External Drive on VISTA laptop in...

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sma2

Posted 3/26/2008 5:27 PM

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I have an external drive with XP installed which works great with my XP desktop - I am trying to use it with my VISTA laptop so I can use various devices which have not been updated for VISTA. I adjusted the BIOS in the laptop so that it will boot from a USB-connected hard drive. XP starts up and after a few seconds the computer reboots and XP starts up and after a few seconds the computer reboots and so on. What do I need to do so that the XP external hard drive works properly with the VISTA laptop as it does with the XP desktop?

Post #236821

exTI

Posted 3/26/2008 7:21 PM

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What do I need to do so that the XP external hard drive works properly with the VISTA laptop as it does with the XP desktop?

That can not be done. When windows boots it assigns drive letters per bios configurations (with the first drive it sees starting with primary device on the primary controller) not the order of boot devices. Since programs and drivers are being loaded windows reverts to the vista drive (primary drive on the local controller) as 'c' drive.
What I think you want is to have 2 os's running together. What you need is to run xp from a virtual machine with something like vmware within vista.

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Access Denied

Posted 3/26/2008 8:35 PM

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Also, the reason it reboots is because the XP install for the desktop has its hardware configured for whats in the desktop. You would need to reinstall that XP using the laptop hardware for it to work. Kinda like switching a motherboard. It becomes plug and pray. BigGrin

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