Windows 10: Windows To Go on a USB 3.0 HDD not booting

I've been trying to boot the Windows 10 Technical Preview (W2G) from a USB 3 attached hard drive with no success.

My BIOS complies when I tell it to boot from the USB device, also, Windows starts to boot, and from the LED on my HDD I can tell that it is running at USB 3 speeds, but after a couple seconds the HDD just stops and the boot process is interrupted with the message "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".

The weird thing here is that I can boot Ubuntu from the same device and port without any issue and the Windows installation boots fine on a USB 2 port, I haven't tried to use a USB 2 cable on the USB 3 port yet, since I don't have any available right now, but I suspect that it'll boot.

I've tried this on an ASUS netbook with no luck either, it does exactly the same, altough it may have something to do with the fact that it has UEFI and my current machine doesn't. Also, the disk is MBR partitioned and not GPT.

To me it sounds like a driver issue, thing is, when I boot into the installation in question via a USB 2 port, the driver for the USB 3 host controller is loaded and working fine (tested with USB 2 devices, since the only USB 3 device I have so far is this HDD). Maybe it is not being loaded on boot? if so, is there any way to make it do so?

Thank you in advance.

:)

 

Slow loading of a drive by file expolorer.

I cloned my system drive to an external USB 3.0 HDD.

After cloning:

If the external HDD is connected before boot (not as the boot drive) there is no problem.

If it is connected after the boot the file explorer enters a very long loading (as seen by the green band).

A mouse click of the icon of the HDD during the load causes the system to enter "Non responding" state.

After the long loading, next connection of the external HDD while the system is running does not cause that long loading.

I stopped the "windows search" service and the indexing on that HDD, it didn't help.

 

mediacreationtool.exe output to a Hard Disk Drives - Windows 10 installation

For the last 3 years I have only purchased USB 3.0 flash drives that present themselves as "Hard Disk Drives" to Windows 7 -
not, "Devices with Removable Storage". I buy that type of flash drive because (as far as I know) USB 3.0 flash-drives that present themselves as HDDs are very much faster than USB 3.0 flash drives
that present themselves to Windows 7 as "Devices with Removable Storage".

In preparation for upgrading to Windows 10 I have noticed that mediacreationtool.exe for Windows 8.1 cannot see and therefore cannot create a USB-boot-flash-drive with any of my newer USB flash drives that present themselves as HDD. I've resorted to scrounging
up some old USB 2.0 flash drives to examine how mediacreationtool.exe creates bootable USB flash drives.

Has this flaw been corrected for the Windows 10 mediacreationtool.exe?

 

Hi there

To create a Windows to Go follow (especially on a "Non Certified" device ) follow these instructions EXACTLY -- the procedure is identical to that outlined in the Link even though it's for an earlier version of Windows.

Be VERY careful when creating the bootrec to use the commands as shown in the link.

Creating a Non-Certified Windows To Go USB Drive » ADMIN Magazine

Cheers
jimbo

 

I created an authentic Windows 10 Windows To Go on my ASUS laptop running Windows 10 Enterprise TP. It booted fine from the USB 3.0 port on that laptop. Haven't tried it on another PC yet though. It's a 256 GB SSD in a USB 3.0 external drive enclosure. There is no way to connect a USB 2 cable to this enclosure.

 

You need to create VHD-based Windows 10 To Go drive, because VHD-based Windows To Go has best compatibility when using non-certified drives to create Windows To Go workspace.

By far the easiest way to to create VHD-based Windows To Go is to use WinToUSB.

 

Hi there
on some USB3 connections you CAN use a USB2 cable - just connect the USB2 cable to the larger of the USB3 slots -- same with a SAMSUNG S5 phone- you can use either a full USB3 connector or a USB2 one

Works fine with those USB3 passport devices -- just leave the small connector (at the HDD end) empty -- plug the USB2 connector into the larger slot.

Your HDD though will only work at USB 2 speed then. Fine when on computers with no USB 3 ports (older laptops etc).

(The USB2 cable needs to be one with the MICRO not the MINI connector --the sort for example a Kindle uses when connected to the computer).

Cheers
jimbo