Dual boot: Need help booting to external USB drive

[65jdgjdg]

HP G6 i3CPU usb2.0 laptop. Came with Win 7 Home installed on a 5400rpm HD. Got USB 3.0 10 port powered hub. Bought a SSD. Swapped drives.
SSD Partition 1 is 200mb boot partition B:
Installed new internal Samsung SSD with Win 7 Ultimate x64 on 2nd partition C: of four partitions. Win 7 Clone

D: and Linux on other partitions. Works Fine.
Need to boot to external old 5400rpm HD via USB to run work related proprietary Programs I can't. transfer.
Got boot menu to boot into Win 7 and it boots to the internal drive but if I try to boot into the external drive, it crashes as soon as the Windows logo appears . I do not even see a login screen. But I am technically booting. I have no trouble accessing the old drive.
The external drive is connected to a USB3.0 hub and the USB3.0 hub is connected to the USB2.0 Laptop port. The USB2.0 Laptop port does not have enough power to run the drive directly.
I have multi booted for years on many a system but always internal only. This is my first attempt to boot to an external USB HD.
I'm out of ideas. Need help please.
Mrgcav. At. G m a I l

 

[file3456]

I'm perplexed at what you said about the HDD not being able to run from the USB 2.0 port directly without a powered USB hub. This drive is undoubtedly a 2.5" laptop drive and I have connected these drives via a simple SATA to USB convertor cable to computers who's only power source was the 5 volts from the USB port its self without the need for a powered hub.

There are many factors as to why an external HDD won't boot from USB. Sometimes it can be hit and miss. To rule out the USB hub as a potential issue blocking the ability to boot the external HDD, you'll want to boot directly from the external HDD using the USB 2.0 port. If there isn't enough power then perhaps you have other USB devices connected at the same time?

Another option may be to turn that OS on the external HDD to a VMware virtual drive and run the OS in the free VMware Workstation Player. In fact, I don't dual partition any OS and just run them all in a virtual machine. You obviously can't run major GPU/CPU demanding games in a virtual machine, but you can do everything else like run a certain program, connect USB devices to the guest OS, etc.

vCenter Converter: P2V Virtual Machine Converter | VMware

Download VMware Workstation Player | VMware

The other possibility to the boot issue may be BIOS settings.

Does your SATA to USB adapter look like this at all? SATA to USB 3.0 Cable Adapter Computer Cables Connectors - Works with 2.5" HDD | eBay

I have one like this but a different model. With a 5.25 HDD you'll need an external power source for 12 and 5 volts like this one. Robot Check

 

[samuria]

Windows 7 won't boot from USB by default unless you make changes to then it won't boot

 

[Snick]

65jdgjdg

You have to use windows to go, or Win to USB for a bootable Windows on a USB drive, then, the easiest way is set up the Boot Manager is using EasyBCD, which is free for non-commercial use.

Windows To Go Creator - AOMEI Partition Assistant

WinToUSB - EasyUEFI

If you are working with Win10

How to Create a Windows10 To Go USB Drive Without the Enterprise Edition...

Snick