I could use some help with Ghost 8.3 and a WD2500B012 external usb drive. My goal is to make this drive bootable and pull images off from it, which I can already do using this tool http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/serveroptions/us/download/23839.html and several 16GB usb flashdrives, which is nice but I can only get a couple of images onto them.

Is it possible to make this drive bootable? When I use the tool mentioned above on this drive I get an error stating that the "drive is to big".

Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way? However even better still would be to create a network boot disk and access this drive from any desktop or laptop in the building. I do have a network share that I can access my images from but I would prefer using this drive.

Thanks for your time.

scj6771,

I'm confused. Are you trying to make your external HD or your flash drives bootable?

I am trying to make the external hd bootable. Thanks.

http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

I have no experience with this but I'd be very interested to hear whether it works.

The HP tool referenced is 45 MB.  

HP Drive Key Boot Utility
version 7.41.3790.0  

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/serveroptions/us/download/23839.html

cp006049.exe

Sorry, that is the tool I was refering to, my link above is not correct, I am using the tool you mentioned to create bootable usb flash drives but it will not work on my external.

I fixed my link above as well. Thanks again.

Damn.

scj6771

Does you BIOS give you USB HDD access if you boot to DOS?

And, I assume you can select the USB HDD as the *Boot Drive* in the BIOS?

Format the USB HDD as FAT32 first.  If it is the only drive that is FAT32, then it will be assigned the C:\ drive letter when booted to DOS.

You need to boot to DOS using a DOS boot disk that has the DOS *Sys* program that is pre-WinME on it--you need to transfer the *system* files needed to make a HDD a DOS boot HDD--so from the A:\ prompt type:

sys C:

The above assumes you have a floppy drive that is A:\ and you only have the USB HDD with a FAT32 partition--if the USB HDD has some other DOS drive letter assigned to it, you would have to adjust the drive letter listed above accordingly.

NightOwl wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 1:32am:

"Format the USB HDD as FAT32 first.  If it is the only drive that is FAT32, then it will be assigned the C:\ drive letter when booted to DOS. You need to boot to DOS using a DOS boot disk that has the DOS *Sys* program that is pre-WinME on it--you need to transfer the *system* files needed to make a HDD a DOS boot HDD--so from the A:\ prompt type:"

I formatted this as NTFS, can I boot into DOS (using Win98 boot disk) and format this as FAT32?

scj6771

If you have DOS access--that should work--but if the HDD is too big, your version of *fdisk* may not handle the HDD size correctly.

I hate to bother you with these "on the fly" questions but how can I tell if my bios will give me USB HDD access in DOS? I booted to DOS but I do not see the drive using fdisk.

I do see it as a startup option in the bios.

scj6771


Quote:

how can I tell if my bios will give me USB HDD access in DOS? I booted to DOS but I do not see the drive using fdisk

Fdisk, if I remember correctly, should *see* a NTFS as a *non-DOS* partition.  If it does not show up, then maybe you do not have DOS  support and access.

But, I would re-format the USB HDD to a FAT32 partition using WinXP's Disk Management, then boot to DOS, and see if a drive letter is assigned, and you can change to that drive.