Can I install OS to SD card on diskless laptop?

I was given a HP laptop with a bad hdd. I have a new one ordered but was
wondering, since this laptop (HP Pavillion) has a SD card reader would I
be able to install the OS (Vista) to a SD card and run it without a hdd?
My guess is no, I don't know if the install disk would see the card
reader without some special drivers loaded first . All of the stuff I
found with Google was from 2009 or so. I couldn't find anything
*exactly* like I want to do though.

I don't have a spare SD card or I'd try, it don't really matter since I
have a hdd ordered but it would be pretty cool it it would work.
--

</Tazz>

In news:4f457813$0$1435$,
Tazz wrote:
> I was given a HP laptop with a bad hdd. I have a new one ordered but
> was wondering, since this laptop (HP Pavillion) has a SD card reader
> would I be able to install the OS (Vista) to a SD card and run it
> without a hdd? My guess is no, I don't know if the install disk would
> see the card reader without some special drivers loaded first . All
> of the stuff I found with Google was from 2009 or so. I couldn't find
> anything *exactly* like I want to do though.
>
> I don't have a spare SD card or I'd try, it don't really matter since
> I have a hdd ordered but it would be pretty cool it it would work.

Internal SD(HC) slots are generally wired to an internal USB. And when
Windows boots, it resets the USB ports in the middle of booting and thus
hangs if the USB is the boot device. There are ways around this problem
though. There are some hacks and Casper (commercial) claims to be able
to boot Windows from an USB device.

So yes it is possible and it might be a lot of work. Although USB2
devices don't have a lot of bandwidth and it would be much slower than
an internal drive using PATA or SATA. Also SD(HC) cards also don't have
the speed of a conventional hard drive or a SSD. SO unless you have a
real good reason to run off of a SD card, it generally isn't worth it.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In article <ji3us8$21k$>, BillW50 <> wrote:
>In news:4f457813$0$1435$,
>Tazz wrote:
>> I was given a HP laptop with a bad hdd. I have a new one ordered but
>> was wondering, since this laptop (HP Pavillion) has a SD card reader
>> would I be able to install the OS (Vista) to a SD card and run it
>> without a hdd? My guess is no, I don't know if the install disk would
>> see the card reader without some special drivers loaded first . All
>> of the stuff I found with Google was from 2009 or so. I couldn't find
>> anything *exactly* like I want to do though.
>>
>> I don't have a spare SD card or I'd try, it don't really matter since
>> I have a hdd ordered but it would be pretty cool it it would work.
>
>Internal SD(HC) slots are generally wired to an internal USB. And when
>Windows boots, it resets the USB ports in the middle of booting and thus
>hangs if the USB is the boot device. There are ways around this problem
>though. There are some hacks and Casper (commercial) claims to be able
>to boot Windows from an USB device.
>
>So yes it is possible and it might be a lot of work. Although USB2
>devices don't have a lot of bandwidth and it would be much slower than
>an internal drive using PATA or SATA. Also SD(HC) cards also don't have
>the speed of a conventional hard drive or a SSD. SO unless you have a
>real good reason to run off of a SD card, it generally isn't worth it.

I booted Win7 off a Seagate FreeAgent USB hard drive for quite a while, using
an NT6 Rapid Install script that also installs the required USB hacks. It
worked reasonably well until I mistakenly installed SP1 which rendered it
unbootable. End of experiement, though the author subsequently fixed that
in a later release.

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/inde...howtopic=10126

On 22/02/2012 7:48 PM, BillW50 wrote:
> In news:4f457813$0$1435$,
> Tazz wrote:
>> I was given a HP laptop with a bad hdd. I have a new one ordered but
>> was wondering, since this laptop (HP Pavillion) has a SD card reader
>> would I be able to install the OS (Vista) to a SD card and run it
>> without a hdd? My guess is no, I don't know if the install disk would
>> see the card reader without some special drivers loaded first . All
>> of the stuff I found with Google was from 2009 or so. I couldn't find
>> anything *exactly* like I want to do though.
>>
>> I don't have a spare SD card or I'd try, it don't really matter since
>> I have a hdd ordered but it would be pretty cool it it would work.
>
> Internal SD(HC) slots are generally wired to an internal USB. And when
> Windows boots, it resets the USB ports in the middle of booting and thus
> hangs if the USB is the boot device. There are ways around this problem
> though. There are some hacks and Casper (commercial) claims to be able
> to boot Windows from an USB device.
>
> So yes it is possible and it might be a lot of work. Although USB2
> devices don't have a lot of bandwidth and it would be much slower than
> an internal drive using PATA or SATA. Also SD(HC) cards also don't have
> the speed of a conventional hard drive or a SSD. SO unless you have a
> real good reason to run off of a SD card, it generally isn't worth it.

Thanks for that reply, I never even thought about the speed issue. Even
if I did get it working without too much hassle the new hdd would be
here before it booted up. XD


--

</Tazz>

On 2/22/2012 3:19 PM, Tazz wrote:
> I was given a HP laptop with a bad hdd. I have a new one ordered but was
> wondering, since this laptop (HP Pavillion) has a SD card reader would I
> be able to install the OS (Vista) to a SD card and run it without a hdd?
> My guess is no, I don't know if the install disk would see the card
> reader without some special drivers loaded first . All of the stuff I
> found with Google was from 2009 or so. I couldn't find anything
> *exactly* like I want to do though.
>
> I don't have a spare SD card or I'd try, it don't really matter since I
> have a hdd ordered but it would be pretty cool it it would work.

Lots of issues with windows.
But linux works pretty well.
I'm running Puppy Linux off a SD card just fine on a netbook.