GµårÐïåñ wrote:Even on systems that cannot run directly from USB, assuming you have the latest BIOS which still doesn't account for it, you can use an inexpensive boot manager like the one provided by Acronis to choose where and what to load, works like a charm.
I'll try for the seventh or eighth time: This system CAN boot from USB: External HD, USB CD or DVD reader or read-writer, etc.
It will not boot from FLASH DRIVES (thumb drives), period. End of story.
Loading Acronis boot disc does allow restoring from a backup image on a flash drive (or anywhere else). Which is not the same as loading a working OS.
If there is a separate product for calling and booting an OS on a flash drive, I'm not familiar with it.
dhouwn wrote:Tom T. wrote: is it possible to "poison" the local, native system? A rootkit probably would be one example, right? So it would not be as safe as the VM, or would it?'
Well, the system booting from the external disk would still have write-access to the disk with the native one, wouldn't it?
Not sure. I guess I was thinking that one would probably install updated versions of one's programs, etc. on that HD, which adds the advantage of total redundancy if the native disk dies. If the external HD install reads the EV %windows% as E:\WINDOWS (and the same for subfolders, system32/64/WOW etc.), and it seems that most other EVs would translate as pointing to the external HD, (and its own Registry stores all of these file paths back to the new drive), then it seems the need for the this HD system to access the native disk is disappearing...
Clearly, it needs access to the sound/video/NIC cards, etc., although via its own drivers (which may not be compatible with these older cards -- another problem?)
Getting a little more complicated here. Perhaps partitioning the native HD *is* better. No reason that an OS on one partition needs to know that the other one exists, right?
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