Dual boot W7 (internal HDD) W2008 (e-sata)

Hi,

For a project I need to have W2008 running for a while, preferably on a physical machine. So I'm exploring this route before going virtual.
This is the setup:
HP 8530w laptop
200Gb internal sata HDD
8 Gb RAM
External sata HDD
Windows 7 is installed on the internal HDD.
I'd like to install w2008 on the external HDD.

The e-sata drive is recognized in w7, and I set the boot order in the BIOS as CD/DVD-esata-internal HD.
I boot from the w2008 DVD and select disk2partition1 as the destination. The install runs until first reboot.
Then the error appears: /windows/system32/winload.exe is either corrupted or missing.
BCDEDIT output:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {1dcb6f56-966f-11de-b54a-ed2d69a068ba}
displayorder {165a98c1-dc6d-11de-975c-a5780e7e3fcb}
{current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 6

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {165a98c1-dc6d-11de-975c-a5780e7e3fcb}
device partition=D:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Server 2008
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
bootdebug Yes
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {165a98c2-dc6d-11de-975c-a5780e7e3fcb}
nx OptOut
pae ForceDisable
detecthal Yes
sos Yes
debug No

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {1dcb6f58-966f-11de-b54a-ed2d69a068ba}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {1dcb6f56-966f-11de-b54a-ed2d69a068ba}
nx OptIn


I tried different drive letters for the w2008 partition, to no avail, the error is still the same.

Can this be done at all? Should I start using an 3rd party bootmanager? Did I make a mistake somewhere?

Many thanks,
Coyo

It may be that you need to have AHCI enabled and if so, then you will need the drivers disk to load when installing the OS to the external drive.

Try here....

Does Windows 7 have AHCI drivers at install

Hope this helps....

I am not familar with W2008 but know that MS works hard to keep its OS's off of external drives lest we could carry them around to any computer.

There is no record yet of it being achieved with Vista and Win7. The tutorial to install XP to a flash stick is one of the more complicated on the web.

The hitch of course is the USB connection, as you can plug the same drive to an IDE/SATA cable and boot it.

I cheated, I mirrored my internal OS to an external e-sata drive and I can actually boot from the external e-sata drive. I have not tried to install the OS from scratch and here-in lies the problem. I'm certain that some sort of driver may be required during the installation process.

elmo2006 said:

I cheated, I mirrored my internal OS to an external e-sata drive and I can actually boot from the external e-sata drive. I have not tried to install the OS from scratch and here-in lies the problem. I'm certain that some sort of driver may be required during the installation process.

You can boot via the USB port, or using IDE/SATA cable?

@gregrocker

The sata cable/port which is connected to a sata bracket on the host system, which then connects to an e-sata HDD dock.
I also tried to install Win 7 as an experiement via this dock and though the win 7 boot dvd saw the drive and was able to delete the partition and format the drive, I was unable to install the OS. I went as far as disabling AHCI in the BIOS and ensured the sata drives were emulating IDE with no luck. I'm sure it can be done - I'll continue to investigate and experiment and keep you posted.

Happy New Years!

I have managed to install and dual boot windows 7 onto my esata drive; to accomplish this I had to disable the AHCI controller and enable IDE on my HP elitebook 8530p laptop.

How is the performance, Kiwi?

Hi Greg,

Unfortunately the performance is not good at all when booting into windows 7. The session freezes periodically making it impossible to do anything worth while.

Kiwi