Solved BSOD installing OS on external drive

I recently got a 2 TB Seagate GoFlex hard drive, and thought it would be cool if I could install a Windows OS onto a partition on it, basically just to see if I could, if it would work well on more than one computer, if it worked noticably better/worse than on an internal one, etc. Not as a replacement for my normal OS, just to do it. So I found this great tutorial: How To Install Windows 7 On USB Flash Drive or External Hard Drive I followed the instructions, using a Windows 7 Ultimate disk. (at this point I don't think I have an available key for it, I just want to install it with the thirty day trial and see if it works before doing anything real with it) Everything worked great, I restarted my computer and it starting installing like it was supposed to, but about halfway through "setup is installing devices" I get a BSOD. Happens no matter how many times I try it. I even read further down that page to a comment that said it might be fixed by disabling SATA controllers in the BIOS: How To Install Windows 7 On USB Flash Drive or External Hard Drive still get this same BSOD. I know this is a really unusual thing to do, but if you have any suggestions or insight into how I could get this to work properly (I know it can be done; it's worked fine up to that point and others have done it. I'm just not sure if it's a problem with the files, the fact that it's 64 bit files, that it's Ultimate, or something else entirely. Maybe my partition is too big?!...) Thanks.

System Info (for the computer I'm doing this one on, not the one in my specs)
HP Pavilion a6500f, Windows Vista Home Premium x64, 160GB HD, Intel Pentium Dual CPU @ 2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM, crappy nVidia integrated graphics.
I'm installing Windows 7 onto a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 2TB external hard drive, onto a clean ntfs 800GB partition in it. Connected via USB.

BTW windows isn't really portable from one computer to another.

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In your particular case, you cannot do what you have mentioned. You cannot just transfer from one computer to another. Even if you did find a way it is against the agreement between you and MS. The rule is one computer at a time. You cannot be given further assistance in this situation. I understand that you were going to use it for less than the 30 day trial, which is a fine point. The rule only one coumptuer at a time, however, is quite clear.

Ok thanks for the info. I wasn't aware of that rule. So if we forget about using it other computers, and I just want to use it on the one computer (and only using the external one because it has a lot more space than my normal HD) can you help me now?

If you remove the OS from the first computer and install on the second that would be fine. Assuming that is your course of action. I need the mini dump. It is not included with your reports. That is the most important one.

Oh ya that windows 7 cd isn't installed on anything else. It was for a computer that stopped working and I wiped the hard drive and used it for something else. I just don't want to bother finding the key for it that i have somewhere until I know that I can get it to work. If I can get it to work well with the 30 fay trial then I'll activate it with the key if I want to keep it.

I don't know how/where to get the minidump, I just followed the instructions for posting the BSOD info in the sticky in the crash and debug category. How do I get it?

See USAMSA
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/231972-no-minidump-file-located.html

Nvm fixed it. I'll go ahead and post what I did in case someone comes along later searching the forums for help with this or whatever:

Firstly, when following that tutorial, one of the files got messed up while copying it from my CD to my HD. So recopying the files was an easy fix for the BSOD. But then it started just freezing during installation instead of giving a BSOD.

So, after a little hunting (well, a lot of hunting), I found this newer version of that installation tool, along with a better tutorial for doing this properly: https://sites.google.com/a/rmprepusb.com/www/tutorials/win7onusb (Just google RMPrepUSB if that link is ever broken; you can find the right page from that main site) I used that instead of the other program from my earlier post and it worked flawlessly. Now running windows 7 directly off of a USB external hard drive, seems to work relatively well so far. Thanks for the help!

If it's alright, I'd like to kind of make this into an unofficial "help thread;" if someone wants some help doing this they can post questions and I'll try to give them some guidance. I know people are normally supposed to start new threads for their own problems, but I think keeping it all here will be easier for me to help, and easier for people to learn from others if they're trying this. Is that ok, Rich? There seems to be very little info about this topic available with Google searches, even for someone like me who knows all the tricks for effective searching. But you seem to know a lot more about this site's policy than I do, so I'll take your word about whether this is a good idea or not.

Thanks again for your help, especially the insight about not using this OS on different computers.

If MS finds out that someone has the OS on 2 computers, at the same time, they could sue for theft of services.
Im glad that it worked out and, as always, wish you the best of luck
Rich

Ya it's definitely only on my one external HD, and will be removed if I ever want to put it on a normal computer. Best not to mess with the Forces the Be.