Windows 7 Want to boot from a W7 drive on a W10 computer

[SeptimusFry]

I am trying to recover a friend's info from the HD of her defunct laptop. So I have my laptop which is W10 these days, and I put the HD into my USB3 drive. I set the boot device to the USB drive, but it just wont boot from there. I have terms like 'legacy' in the boot settings screen - not sure what that means. Do I have to do some sort of initialization of the hardware to include the USB device, or perhaps I need to apply some sort of initialization to the USB device.

It is so long since I had to bother myself with such low-level considerations and would much appreciate some helpful info.

 

[Jimbo22]

It may or may not work as it's dependent on the device itself (your laptop). Your laptop is designed to work with your OS only because of the particular hardware and it's drivers it has on the mobo. With the HDD in question, trying as purposed may damage your laptop and the HDD.

What you need is a docking station (I have one built onto my case) and they are plug/play. With this device there is no need to boot from it to access the drive to recover data.
hard drive docking station - Newegg.com

 

[SeptimusFry]

Sorry, didn't make it explicit, the HD (actuall SSD) is in a docking station, not sure how I would be trying this otherwise.
My laptop was originally loaded W7 but is currently W10.

I vaguely remember that booting sources/devices are written into the BIOS and just trying to boot off a bootable device is not quite enough on its own. Something has to be written into some firmware somewhere.

 

[Jimbo22]

Sorry, didn't make it explicit, the HD (actuall SSD) is in a docking station, not sure how I would be trying this otherwise.

There's a few ways to do this with out a docking station.

I vaguely remember that booting sources/devices are written into the BIOS and just trying to boot off a bootable device is not quite enough on its own. Something has to be written into some firmware somewhere.

No....not that I've ever heard.

To boot off that drive that's in the docking station, restart laptop, at post beep, start tapping the F12 key.....this will bring up the boot order menu with out going into the BIOS, select your drive and select OK. It should restart and boot from that drive. I do this with the docking station that's built into my case for troubleshooting HDD/SSD drives....first to check access of drive for data integrity and then to see if I can boot from it.

 

[SeptimusFry]

There's a few ways to do this with out a docking station.....case for troubleshooting HDD/SSD drives....first to check access of drive for data integrity and then to see if I can boot from it.

I must come across as an absolute dummy ! Perhaps I don't say enough. I have of course entered setup, as you say f12 on my particular computer. It is not like the AMD BIOS on my desktop computer, just a simple interface called Boot Manager. This what I get...

Boot mode is set to: Legacy; Secure Boot off

LEGACY BOOT:
Hard Drive
USB storage device (this is my external hard drive)
CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
Network

OTHER OPTIONS:
Diagnostics
Enter Setup

So, in principle, it recognizes that there is a bootable device on the USB port.

Trying to boot off it, firstly the W8/W10 ´window' icon appears in the middle of the screen... the rolling circle appears and rotates, as per usual, and after some time the (pale blue screen, not BSD) ´Pc ran into a problem, we'll reboot it for you', reason is Inaccessible boot device.

I am sure that the alternative boot devices have to be registered onto the first possible boot device, or something like that. I was hoping someone would respond who is a bit wiser than me on MBR and stuff. I distinctly remember having to enter a low level BOO command.......

 

[Jimbo22]

So, in principle, it recognizes that there is a bootable device on the USB port.

Yes that it sees your drive.

Trying to boot off it, firstly the W8/W10 ´window' icon appears in the middle of the screen... the rolling circle appears and rotates, as per usual, and after some time the (pale blue screen, not BSD) ´Pc ran into a problem, we'll reboot it for you', reason is Inaccessible boot device.

This is exactly what I was talking about in post #2....just because you have the physical hardware to....doesn't mean it will work. This is because of the driver/BIOS conflicts form each system. As an example a Dell HDD will not boot in a HP system and vice versa. Like I said, it's a 50/50 shot that it would boot.

I am sure that the alternative boot devices have to be registered onto the first possible boot device, or something like that.

I have know clue what you're talking about here.

If all you are trying to do is recover your friends data (what data is that excatly), all you should have to do is; while hdd is in the docking station and docking station is powered on, open up file explorer and your system should see it and assign it a new drive letter, double click on new drive and go to where ever the data is stored and copy it to a flash drive. I do this all the time.

 

[Jimbo22]

Unless there is some conflict as to what you're referring to as a docking station and to what I know what a docking station is.

 

[SeptimusFry]

Well, you might well be right. There are boring reasons why I need to boot off it, but I may be able to do no more than simple data recovery in the end. IAM surprised at what you said about a dell hd not working in an hp, for example... I understood MBRs etc all to be hardware independent. But what do I know, I've forgotten most of what I ever knew.

 

[patcooke]

I must be missing something - you should not need to boot from the drive just to read data files from it.

 

[patcooke]

Well, you might well be right. There are boring reasons why I need to boot off it, but I may be able to do no more than simple data recovery in the end. IAM surprised at what you said about a dell hd not working in an hp, for example... I understood MBRs etc all to be hardware independent. But what do I know, I've forgotten most of what I ever knew.

The two pcs will almost certainly have differing hardware components requiring completely different drivers and registry entries all of which will combine to make it extremely unlikely that the installed and configured op sys on one will even boot let alone run - you can virtually gurantee boot failure or a blue screen.

 

[SeptimusFry]

Odd, I have done it before, Acer drive on a dell platform, and yes some things misbehaved due to inappropriate drivers, but things tend to drop back to generics, like screen coming up in vga... The reason why I want to boot this drive has to do with passwords, but I suspect you are right, the differences are just too much. I have marked yours as the best answer.

 

[Jimbo22]

Odd, I have done it before,

As have I and I just did not more than 5 minutes on the wifes old HP 2.5" hdd. I had to change my BIOS from UEFI to UEFT with Legacy. With only UEFI you can only boot with the systems HDD and no other. Once I did that and used F12 to select wifes HDD....it booted fine. The only issues I had was, I had no internet connection and no sound. That's because of the reasons myself and patccoke stated. Some do some don't.....it's not a given that all will.