Dual Boot with External hard drive or USB

Rockhead · 30 Dec 2009

I have a Dell Inspiron 1440 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Some of my older applications do not support this platform. My processor does not support Window Virtual PC and Windows XP mode so I was hoping to add XP as a dual boot. Is it possible to boot XP from an external harddrive or USB instead of having to partition the internal hard drive. Or do you have any suggestions on how I can load XP after Windows 7 is already loaded. Thanks for any help or advice.

Jonathan_King · 30 Dec 2009

Hey Rockhead, Welcome!

Try reading this tutorial.

Hope this helps,
~Jonathan

1Bowtie · 30 Dec 2009

Hi Rockhead and Welcome to SevenForums

Easy answer is yes you can dual boot. Go to control panel/ disk management/ and partition the drive 50/50, 60/40 depending on your needs and how big the drive is. Once you create the partition it will be unallocated space, format the unallocated space, give it a drive letter and install Win XP, transfer your files and your done.

I don't think you can use your external drive as a system drive unless someone else can tell you how. Hope this helps there will be more views in time.

Smitty