Will my PC Boot from an External USB Drive?

Stevekir · 15 Sep 2015

Windows 7 Home Premium. PC built last March, C: is a 256 GB SSD. It contains no documents (they are all on an internal spinning HDD.) Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-H81M-S2H. (image attached). It has UEFI. I want to set up an additional drive (outside the case for easey access) to act as a bootable backup. I would clone the C: drive to it (keeping it up to date Windows-wise) and use it to boot the PC if/when necessary.

The obvious and simplest way to do this would be to use an external USB spinning hard drive plugged into a USB socket on the PC's case (I have sockets for USB 2 and USB 3). I've got a new USB 3 drive already sitting on my desktop, Western Digital Elements. But I have been told by several sources that Windows 7 does not reliably boot from a USB drive.

Is that true please? If so, how could I have my PC modified to make USB booting work?

Thanks.

ignatzatsonic · 15 Sep 2015

It can boot from a USB, but it's not easily done and problematic.

An alternative is to use a "drive dock", connected to the PC through an eSATA port. You put an ordinary spinning internal drive into the dock and connect it by cable to the PC. The dock is effectively an "external drive", but the drive is exposed in an open enclosure---not inside an enclosure. This works well--I ran my PC this way for a week last spring. I just restored an image of C to the docked drive.

But your case and motherboard apparently don't have an eSATA port, so an eSATA dock won't help you.

So you are back to square one: fighting the shakiness of USB booting or using other methods--imaging or cloning to an internal drive. You appear to still reject those other methods.

AddRAM · 15 Sep 2015

Why does it have to be external ?

Why does it have to be USB ?

Just hook the drive up internally, it only takes a minute, do your clone, then update the drive by recloning when ever you feel the need.

Stevekir · 16 Sep 2015

AddRAM said:

Why does it have to be external ?

Why does it have to be USB ?

Just hook the drive up internally, it only takes a minute, do your clone, then update the drive by recloning when ever you feel the need.

On the hooking up internally, that was Ignatzasonic's suggestion and I am thinking aboutit, but the simplicity of connecting a desktop USB drive is attractive. However, many people say that booting from a USB drive is problematical.

ThrashZone · 16 Sep 2015

Hi,
You can also look into some thing like this,
Amazon.com: ICY DOCK ToughArmor MB996SP-6SB 6 x 2.5 SATA 6Gbps HDD / SSD Mobile Rack / Cage in 1 x 5.25 bay: Computers & Accessories

LMiller7 · 16 Sep 2015

Just to be clear, there are no problems with booting from an external drive. The problem is running Windows 7 on an external drive, something it was never designed for.