Can we boot from a USB HDD?

[johnny]

Could someone explain how to get windows to boot off usb I’m not sure how to go about doing this.

[lamosca01]

To operate from the USB you have to modify the USB drivers (MCCI USB driver). In my case, I modified the .inf where it says StartType = 3 I put StartType = 0. You can do it with Notepad ++. You must have a micro sd in fat32 format to create the paging file.
I’m sorry for the English, I use the google translator.

[johnny]

Thank you it worked! How would I go about setting up a paging file RAM usage is high

[AnthonyTalerico]

I’ll be posting a video on how to do this later tonight.

[johnny]

That’d be great, thanks!

[AnthonyTalerico]

How-to video has been posted in a new topic:

How-to video (17763 on SD & SSD)

I feel kind of bad after seeing all of the interest (including Terry’s post back to me last night) about WoA. I would be happy to conduct a video using it, but in this one I decided to use WoR simply because it was what I used to get everything running on an SSD. This video is far from perfect. I have several stumbles because I was exhausted while making it, but I really wanted everyone to have access to it immediately. It’s in painstaking detail so you wont miss anything. Feel free to leave a l…

[SuperJMN]

I’ve tried with he modified drivers (StartType=0) and when I choose my SSD, it blinks and returns to the UEFI shell

[AnthonyTalerico]

I had that issue once. I had to redo the UEFI on my SD card. I ended up copying the UEFI files from the BOOT partition on the SSD and overwrote the ones on the card. It’s either the BOOT on the SSD or on the SD card. That’s where the problem is. Also, try going into Boot manager and selecting the SSD manually instead of changing the boot order. I had an issue with that once as well. In addition to that, you can delete UEFI shell from the boot options which will not give it the option to boot there. I deleted boot from everything except the SSD and it worked perfectly.

[SuperJMN]

Thanks for your directions, Anthony.

I re-deployed the UEFIs of both (SD Card and SSD) and removed all the boot options but the SSD. After that, I manually chose to boot the SSD. No worky

[AnthonyTalerico]

Glad to hear it! I was worried that I over-complicated things, but I wanted it to be in as much detail as possible.

[SuperJMN]

Sorry, I have explained myself wrong. I mean that “it’s not working”.

I usually say “no worky” as a funny way to say it.

So, I’m stuck with USB booting.

[Oky12]

for USB booting. I don’t use tools like WOA or WOR. but using manual methods (CMD). and that work for me

[SuperJMN]

Can you describe your method?

[Oky12]

on my method. I only install UEFI on the SD card or flashdrive which is formatted to Fat32. then on hdd / ssd I created 2 partitions. the first partition to boot into windows (formatted to fat32). and the second is Windows (formatted to NTFS). after all partitions have been made. I apply the WIM file to the second partition (Windows) and make the bootloader on the first partition with CMD.
after applying windows is complete. I inject the driver into the Windows partition. but before that I modified the inf usb driver file (change startType to 0)

CMD list command
note : open cmd with run as administrator

• Apply WIM
  dism /apply-image /imagefile:(location Install.wim) /index:1 /applydir:(location to apply WIM exemple F:)

• Inject Driver
  dism /image:(location WIM applied) /add-driver /driver:(location of the driver folder) /recurse /forceunsigned

• Make Bootloader
  bcdboot F:\Windows /s E: /f UEFI
  note: E: is bootloader parttion, F:\windows is windows folder location

• set windows to test MODE
  bcdedit /store E:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bcd /set {default} testsigning on

• Skip Checking Driver
  bcdedit /store E:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bcd /set {default} nointegritychecks on

for boot to hdd / ssd I just go to UEFI then to the boot menu and select usb HDD / SSD

do you understand what I’m talking about?
or I make a tutorial video like @AnthonyTalerico

[AnthonyTalerico]

I think I understand. So the driver pack in my “Pi Pack” has the boot from ssd-ready version of the USB. What I do to get UEFI working properly is install Windows altogether the normal way, then format the partition that is Windows on the SD card keeping only UEFI. UEFI must be on both partitions. Once you’re in UEFI with Windows and UEFI installed on the SSD, you should try going to your boot manager and booting directly to the SSD. At that point, Windows should start loading. Is this what you’ve done?

[Oky12]

like I said before

but when testing I need an SD card to run UEFI. because UEFI on my old hdd doesn’t work.

for booting to my old hdd. i just open UEFI then go to boot manager and boot into my hdd. and succeed without BSOD

Summary is that you need 1 storage that can be used to run UEFI and boot to usb hdd / ssd

[AnthonyTalerico]

This is exactly it. What Oky12 just said simplifies what I was trying to say. Thank you sir!

[Mario]

I’ve installed everything on an USB drive and plugged in an empty SD card for the paging file.
This should work out-of-the-box on the Pi 3 B+ model. On the B model you’ll have to set the OTP bit responsible for USB boot.

[SuperJMN]

OK, Mario, that’s my case I think. I’m using B (non plus) I understand that I need have to set the “OTP bit”. It’s the first time I heard about it. How can we set it? Inside the UEFI?

Thanks

[Mario]

Add “program_usb_boot_mode=1” to your config.txt file and boot up the Pi (from a SD card). You can remove that line afterwards.