I created a bootable xp vhd universal drive thanks to this awesome forum, most of the guides recommends a 2GB vhd size. If I have a 32gb usb flash drive, any advantages to having a 2GB vhd vs 30GB vhd? Or would it be better to create multiple partitions, 1 for the 2GB vhd xp, and the 2nd partition for the storage and apps installations ?
xp vhd size on usb flash drive question
#1
Posted 11 November 2014 - 10:17 PM
#2
Posted 12 November 2014 - 11:32 AM
There are a few issues that you need to be aware of.
A USB stick may come in two "flavours" (from factory:
"Removable" <- this applies to 99.99% (please read as "ALL") USB 2.0 sticks
"Fixed" <- this applies to some (but NOT all) the "fastish" USB 3.0 sticks that are actually a USB to SATA brifge+mini SSD (other sticks will still be "Removable").
A USB stick which is seen as "Removable" by Windows won't let you access as a drive (will not mount to a drive letter) any partition but the first one.
There are ways to workaround this, however, by either making use of a filter driver (but systems that do not have it installed won't be able to access non first partition) or by finding the relevant manufacturer tool and "flip the bit" (risky/possibly complex).
You won't probably be able be normally able to make a contiguous .vhd of 30 Gb size on a 32 Gb stick.
You are limited to use the NTFS filesystem on the stick (because a FAT32, besides being possibly much slower won't allow the creation of file bigger than 4 Gb) and the "normal" NTFS file structure will interfere.
There is a workaround for this too, however:
http://reboot.pro/to...disk-emulation/
More generally, there is little point/need to make a very large .vhd for an XP on USB stick, a "normal" (untouched) install of Windows XP is around 1.5 Gb, and whilst 2 Gb may be a little tight if you have many (or very big) programs on it, something like 4 Gb is usually much more than enough (remember that you can have all "data" saved "directly" to the USB stick, outside the .vhd).
Wonko
#3
Posted 12 November 2014 - 12:59 PM
Any disadvantages to the new fixed 3.0 drives with fast 4k 512 read write speeds? I bought it not knowing it will be a fixed drive but because i was looking for drives with fast 4k 512kb benchmarks and the sandisk was one of the best. There were 3 other drives but they were much more expensive.
#4
Posted 12 November 2014 - 01:27 PM
I would not be so sure about the specific device to be of the "Fixed" type, see:
http://reboot.pro/to...30-flash-drive/
Sandisk specifically seemingly "reversed" their policy on newish sticks.
Wonko
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