SOLVED new hard drive arriving today-need advice

[clifford_cooley]

All that I've ever ran with Windows (since having XP Pro in 2002) is the NTFS file system. I have a few thumb drives that's FAT (or exFAT), but not on a hard drive.

Prior to 2002, I was running FAT32 with Win 2K, but even that's on a NTFS format now.

Cat

I must have missed something.

If you are not using FAT32 why the topic of the 137GB limitation?

 

[catilley1092]

I was responding to TrainableMan's post, he was explaining the 137GB limit to me. What I was speaking of prior to that, was that Windows doesn't run on a USB connection, that I'll probably soon be getting a new notebook, the drive is rattling, and when I do, I would like to purchase a small SATA drive (120GB or less) and swap out drives to run the older OS's.

That is, if that can be done (drivers & so forth).

Cat

 

[TrainableMan]

OK if you are NTFS then the issue wasn't FAT32. I reread your post and I overlooked or misinterpreted but now I see you are trying to run XP over USB. From my research it's extremely difficult and not recommended, but with a lot of work ...
Here and Here are possible solutions.

 

[catilley1092]

Actually, it's been sometime since I tried this. What I did was, took a recent XP Media Center backup with Macrium, then installed that backup on my Caviar Black drive, after I decided it was too noisy for my preference.

I then tried to boot it through a USB port, it looked at first like it would go, then failed. What I should have done was place the drive into it's proper place, then try to boot it. But with all those Dell drivers installed on it, I don't know if it would have worked or not.

When the Caviar Black is repaired or replaced, I'll try this out. I really like the XP Media Center Edition (a modified version of XP Pro), and would like to be able to install it on this computer, if that's possible. It's supported until April 8, 2014 with important & security updates.

If it will work, I have two options. I have room for one more primary partition, or I can dump Vista (my most likely choice).

Cat