WinXp on External HD with MBP C2D and rEfit

[Rknight]

I'll try to make this short... I've been in the process of installing WinXP onto an external USB drive to be used on my MBP C2D without installing ANYTHING on my OSX internal drive or partitioning. I've come a long way with tools from some very slick, resourceful people on the net and my own personal obsession with this.

 

This is where I am right now:

- I've made a USB installable WinXP disk with this guide.

 

- I did install Boot Camp 1.1.2 to burn my driver disk, thats all.

 

- I've boot to the XP disc then been able to begin the first phase of installation of XP, but when I reboot I am unable to boot to the windows drive to continue installation. Hitting Option -- or Cmd-Option-Shift-Delete doesn't work, also going into the OSX's Startup Disk option in System prefs. and selected the Windows drive doesn't work, it just sits there on the reboot.

 

- So I came across rEFIt - great tool, I decided to install it to a spare USB thumb drive (a suggestion from the site). rEFIt comes up, I select the windows USB drive, the gray windows logo appears then...

I get this error:

Booting Legacy OS

Starting legacy loader

Using load options 'USB'

Error: Not Found returned from legacy loader

Error: Not Found from LocateDevicePath

[......above error 13 more times.....]

Error: Load Error while (re)opening our installation volume (Tried rEFIt on a cd and that got rid of this error)

I know it could be that fact that I'm on an external drive... or it could be that Im running from the thumb drive, but I feel it has to do with the MBP C2D firmware. I've read people with other models have gotten this to work and other people with this model have reported similar problems, plus the firmware was an issue with the MacPros for a while... So... any suggestions? I fear that an update to rEFIt is whats needed here, but I could be wrong.

Firmware Info for my MBP C2D

Boot ROM Version: MBP22.00A5.B01

SMC Version : 1.12f5

(the latest as of this post on 02/17/2006)

Any help would greatly appreciated, like many, I've lost lots of sleep over this!

THANKS!

[Rknight]

Interestingly enough, I decided to connect the windows drive though firewire to test an idea I had. And it turns out I was correct, rEFIt had no problem again seeing the Windows drive (now on firewire) and when I chose it, it started to load windows, but then I was at a DOS screen telling me it could not find a bootable drive.

 

Now that is because its on firewire, and Windows can not boot to firewire, but what that told me is that the drive started to boot, meaning rEFIt did its job. So this just confirms what we already know, that this issue is related to USB, firmware on the MBP C2D and rEFIt. But at least it lessens the chances its something else.

 

Just thought I’d share my findings.

[nerfjames]

Interestingly enough, I decided to connect the windows drive though firewire to test an idea I had. And it turns out I was correct, rEFIt had no problem again seeing the Windows drive (now on firewire) and when I chose it, it started to load windows, but then I was at a DOS screen telling me it could not find a bootable drive.

 

Now that is because its on firewire, and Windows can not boot to firewire, but what that told me is that the drive started to boot, meaning rEFIt did its job. So this just confirms what we already know, that this issue is related to USB, firmware on the MBP C2D and rEFIt. But at least it lessens the chances its something else.

 

Just thought I’d share my findings.

 

have you read this?

 

http://tubeshards.wordpress.com/2006/12/05...tosh-usb-drive/

[Rknight]

have you read this?

 

http://tubeshards.wordpress.com/2006/12/05...tosh-usb-drive/

 

Thank you, but actually I have, that is where I found out about rEFIt first. The problem I have found is mainly related to the MBP C2D, there are a people whom have commented on there (I'm included more recently) that they are having problems with rEFIt and a MBP C2D, same as me.

 

From what I've gathered (and I'm open to suggestions) that what is required is an update to rEFIt to be able to work with the MBP C2D firmware...

[flowolf]

Same problem here, I can't boot Windows XP from a USB drive.

[fobis]

I have exactly the same problem. I wish I found this earlier so I didn't feel so alone and stupid.

Is there any way to add FireWire as a boot device in Windows much like what was done with USB? Then, we could at least boot from firewire, although it is a bit more inconvenient for me, considering my mousepad is directly to the right of my MBP which is about where the FireWire port is.

WinXP is a bit outdated for my purposes, though. The only reason I'll ever install Windows (and probably Vista) is for DX10 games (which aren't even out yet) such as Halo 2.

So I wonder if there is a similar method for Vista yet...

[Force Quit?]

Perhaps by attaching both a USB cable and a FW cable will help?

 

If the XP you wrote to the external was indeed made using the guide you pointed out, then it would, in theory, see it as USB, then once booted into XP, you can disconnect the USB.

 

Just a guess.

 

FQ

[fobis]

Perhaps by attaching both a USB cable and a FW cable will help?

 

If the XP you wrote to the external was indeed made using the guide you pointed out, then it would, in theory, see it as USB, then once booted into XP, you can disconnect the USB.

 

Just a guess.

 

FQ

Wait.... What?!

We're trying to get Windows to boot from the USB drive. How would this happen if we unplugged the USB cable???!!!

Obviously, you're missing something here.

We're trying to find a way to boot Windows from a USB HDD without any partitioning of the main hard drive.

Anyways, I don't think USB will work for some time, given Rknight's FireWire test. So... the next best thing to do would be to find out how to make it work via FireWire.

Ideas, anyone?

[lotus49]

I have had the same problem with my MBP. I installed XP on the USB HDD without much problem but got the same error messages when I tried to boot into using rEFIt.

 

Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this? I am curious to know if this is fixable by rEFIt or whether there is a problem with the MBP firmware and we shall need to wait.

 

Did anyone manage to get it to work?

 

My only reason to run XP is to play a couple of old games (like Grand Prix Legends) and I really don't want to have to install it onto the MBP HDD.

[fwappy]

I've been wanting to do this for a while now, so I'm going to subscribe to this thread. I sometimes need to test driver builds while traveling and I use a MacBook. Like you guys, I don't want to put Windows on my internal HDD. Actually, I'd like to be able to boot multiple OSs from the USB drive such as Tiger, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, XP, and Vista. lol

 

Have you guys tried disconnecting the internal HDD? Did you have to do that to get XP to install correctly, even with the modified installer disc?

[lotus49]

I know that some people have been successful doing this but AFAICT it seems to depend on which machine/firmware version they have.

 

I have a MacBook Pro with the latest firmware and that does NOT appear to support USB booting but I think that this is a bug.

 

If you read through this -> http://tubeshards.wordpress.com/2006/12/05...tosh-usb-drive/ you will see someone managed it.

 

I am fairly sure that the problem is not related to the presence of the internal disk although I have not tried it. Removing the HDD from a MBP is not for the faint of heart. I have replaced the HDD but it involves removing about 20 screws and takes at least half an hour and a lot of care so I would rather avoid doing this. When I installed XP on my other laptop removing the HDD was not necessary (although I did make sure I have an up-to-date clone of the HDD before I started but this wasn't needed in the end).

 

I have tried installing directly on my MBP also without success. It booted my modified install disk fine. The installer could see the USB disk but when I selected it for installation there was an error message saying something along the lines of "This disk cannot be used to install Windows XP. This may not indicate an error condition...".

 

This happened whether I booted from the usual Apple boot loader or from rEFIt.

 

I am not sure what to try next, but I am very keen to get this to work. My desktop is slower than my MBP and the only thing I use it for now is to play Grand Prix Legends. I would love to be able to get rid of it but I cannot until I get XP running on the MBP.

[lotus49]

I have transcribed the error message I get from the Windows XP installer if I try to boot from rEFIt -> Windows XP CD and then attempt to install on the USB HDD (which, incidentally, is identified as C: whereas the internal HDD is identified as G:).

 

Your computer's startup program cannot gain access to the disk
containing the partition or free space you chose. Setup cannot
install Windows XP on this hard disk.

This lack of access does not necessarily indicate an error condition.
For example, disks attached to a SCSI controller that wasn't installed
by your computer manufacturer or to a secondary hard disk controller,
are typically not visible to the startup program unless special
software is used. Contact your computer or hard disk controller
manufacturer for more information.

On x86-based computer, this message may indicate a problem with the
CMOS drive type settings. See your disk controller documentation
for more information.

Press ENTER to continue.

 

I think I'll try booting into the Windows XP installation CD not using rEFIt and see if that helps (I have to say that I am not very optimistic that it will though).

 

EDIT:

 

Well I was unfortunately right, it made no difference at all.

[lotus49]

What has made some difference is booting from a CD in an external USB drive. This did not help with my MBP (which is why I am doing all this) but I had the same error message on my Compaq nc6220 and when I tried installing from a USB CD drive on that machine, it worked perfectly.

 

I am not sure what this tells us, but I feel that I am getting closer. That may not mean I will ever get there though. This is starting to get frustrating.

[lotus49]

This is turning into a blog rather than a discussion, but I am now fairly convinced that the latest MBP firmware is the cause of the problems we are having.

 

Other people have got this working with earlier versions of the firmware on MacBook Pros. So far it appears that no-one running MBP22.00A5.B07 has got this to work.

 

It also appears that, due to the way rEFIt works, that we are now dependent on Apple's fixing this as the author of rEFIt has said that rEFIt is not capable of overcoming limitations like this.

 

If anyone would like to correct me I'd be pleased.