I've got a hard drive connected to my PC with eSATA. I'd like to install Windows XP on it without having to reboot the computer.
What is the best/easiest/quickest way of doing this?
I plan on inserting the hard drive into an other PC later on.
I've got a hard drive connected to my PC with eSATA. I'd like to install Windows XP on it without having to reboot the computer.
What is the best/easiest/quickest way of doing this?
I plan on inserting the hard drive into an other PC later on.
The install will require a reboot.
Moving it to a new PC will also create issues with hardware incompatibility and driver stability.
Can you provide more info on what you wish to accomplish beyond getting XP installed on the eSATA drive?
Given the cost of a CD/DVD (or the time to "borrow" one from a working system) getting a working CD/DVD is a much better option
Extract a .wim
file to the disk. This will probably take about 15-20 min. or longer depending on the transfer rates for the HDD and CD/DVD. I know Windows 7 DVDs have an install.wim
that uses the default settings. Windows XP does not, but if you have a wim file that you created with ImageX, that would probably be the most convenient way to set it up. However, you will have to reboot after it is done extracting the files, but at least you can continue to work during the copying/extracting files part.
If you do not already have a wim file, you will have to create one (you can set up a VM, run sysprep, and create the wim file). Unfortunately this will not save time unless you have to install it multiple times.
You can also go into Device Manager and select Action > Scan for hardware changes
, but you may have to reboot a couple of times. Running sysprep
with the generalize option will clear hardware-specific settings and drivers, but may cause problems with activation.
Use VMware for installing the Operating System.
So that it can be movable easily.
VMware Player
The Easiest Way to Run a Virtual Machine