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Running older OS on external USB hard drive with modern PC?

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First post, by Destroy

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I've been trying to get my modern Toshiba laptop(2015 with Win10) to boot to WinXP or Vista64 which are installed onto an external USB hard drive(SSD, thumb drive would work too).

I can get really close but the OS crashes halfway through boot startup, about 10 seconds after the Windows graphic appears. This is on SSD so things go very fast, so it is booting pretty far.

There are many ways online showing it can be done but most are installing Win7 and I'm certainly not having much luck with XP or Vista.

I'm nearing the point of giving up and simply assuming my laptop is not compatible enough to boot to an external drive.

Just wondering if anyone here has had success with this challenge.

Edit: Typos and clarity

Reply 2 of 6, by xplus93

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Make sure you are not using a USB 3.0 port first.

XPS 466V|486-DX2|64MB|#9 GXE 1MB|SB32 PnP
Presario 4814|PMMX-233|128MB|Trio64
XPS R450|PII-450|384MB|TNT2 Pro| TB Montego
XPS B1000r|PIII-1GHz|512MB|GF2 PRO 64MB|SB Live!
XPS Gen2|P4 EE 3.4|2GB|GF 6800 GT OC|Audigy 2

Reply 3 of 6, by Destroy

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Davros wrote:

you got xp onto the usb drive by booting from the xp cd and installing it to the usb drive yes ?

No, Rufus2.11 worked best.

USB3.0/2.0 combo ports are the only thing available on my laptop I'm trying this with. The minimalistic bios is set to USB legacy so much more than that I can't do.

I'm also using a slipstreamed winXP .iso that in theory has SP3, SATA and proper USB drivers baked in.

I haven't given up trying this yet but for now this project is on hold. I've shifted my focus on running in virtual machines instead.

Reply 4 of 6, by xplus93

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Make sure your chipset drivers are slipstreamed as well. What model is the laptop? You may want to see if it is able to run XP at all even off of the internal hard drive. The VM route does sound like it the best option. I would also say maybe get an XP laptop while they're still cheap. A dell c840 is a great and plentiful machine.

XPS 466V|486-DX2|64MB|#9 GXE 1MB|SB32 PnP
Presario 4814|PMMX-233|128MB|Trio64
XPS R450|PII-450|384MB|TNT2 Pro| TB Montego
XPS B1000r|PIII-1GHz|512MB|GF2 PRO 64MB|SB Live!
XPS Gen2|P4 EE 3.4|2GB|GF 6800 GT OC|Audigy 2

Reply 5 of 6, by mauxie

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if the boot configuration was for a different motherboard, it probably won't work ever.
you need to pull your main drive, and install the alternate system to the usb drive via the
target motherboard. the installation process always reads the motherboard and chooses
drivers on the basis of that specific hardware configuration. expecting a working install
from a different mobo to work is not reasonable. or do I misunderstand how you attempted
this process?

Reply 6 of 6, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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xplus93 wrote:

Make sure your chipset drivers are slipstreamed as well. What model is the laptop? You may want to see if it is able to run XP at all even off of the internal hard drive. The VM route does sound like it the best option. I would also say maybe get an XP laptop while they're still cheap. A dell c840 is a great and plentiful machine.

Are we expecting old laptops to spike in price now?

I know I got my XPS Gen1 for $45 and people give away laptops on /r/Hardwareswap pretty often. Someone gave away an Inspiron 9100 and a 4:3 CoreDuo Gateway a couple days ago.

What makes the C840 so great?

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

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