Booting a hard drive via usb from another pc through VMware or bios in windows.

fabledareturn · Sep 21, 2016

I am trying to boot a hard drive from another computer via usb. I am on windows 7 trying to boot it through my bios selecting boot from usb which seems to not work or VMware. I have VMware 12. I am aware of it not having the same drivers as my pc. Wondering if there was a way to boot it in either cases with default drivers. Would like to view the hard drive in its entirely verses just through file explorer. The hard drive i am trying to boot is windows xp. Sorry if this is the wrong thread or had already been answered.

TerryLaze · Sep 21, 2016

In vmware you can tell it to use a complete disk as the virtual disk,if the usb shows up as a normal hard drive you will be able to select it in this matter and boot it up.
https://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_add_raw.html

If not you will have to convert the real hard disk into an vm compatible copy as a file on your main disk.
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter.html

hang-the-9 · Sep 21, 2016

fabledareturn :

You can't boot a computer that way. Windows will not boot off an external drive this way, especially if you just removed it from a system.

Not sure what you mean about "like to view the hard drive in its entirely", you should be able to see all the files on the drive if you plug it in as an external drive or boot from it directly.

Search

Booting a hard drive via usb from another pc through VMware or bios in windows.

fabledareturn

Commendable

TerryLaze

TerryLaze

Polypheme

hang-the-9

Titan

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page