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Booting from a USB hard drive

post #1 of 17
8/21/03 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
Is it possible to boot from a usb hard drive? I want to actually run windows from the external hard drive. Anyone know?
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post #2 of 17
8/21/03 at 6:01pm
No idea, but I sort of doubt it. I've never seen anything in my BIOS that allow that though I can't think of any reason why it could not be done. If you can boot from a Floppy or a HD or a CD, why not a PCMCIA or a USB or a Firewire Drive? Would it be possible to trick the BIOS into believing your PCMCIA/USB/FireWire is your floppy? or your HD or your CD?
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post #3 of 17
8/21/03 at 6:08pm
Not unless your computer's BIOS handles booting from USB. Some systems may, I have not seen any personally... they are rare to be exact.

What mobo are you using in your Desktop?

-myrkat
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post #4 of 17
8/21/03 at 6:28pm
Thread Starter 
Its in my sig. I really want to be able to do it with my new 8890 though. My problem is my school has a wireless network and they will only let people acess them with their notebooks. What I'm hoping to do is to take my old notebook hard drive with the schools WEP on it and use it to run the sager for when I want to acess the internet. I could also just copy the old hard drive to the new, but I'll loose hyperthreading if I do that.


I've ordered this to turn my old hard drive in to an external:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...ptop+enclosure

I love that I can have such a small external hard drive.

PS. I can use the schools network by ethernet just not the wireless. So I don't know why my school is so stupid.
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post #5 of 17
8/21/03 at 7:22pm
I'm not sure about Sager, but my Gateway Solo 3450 can boot up form the external USB HDD. I think it's depended on the BIOS as they already said.
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post #6 of 17
8/21/03 at 8:03pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Shadowhwk
Its in my sig. I really want to be able to do it with my new 8890 though. My problem is my school has a wireless network and they will only let people acess them with their notebooks. What I'm hoping to do is to take my old notebook hard drive with the schools WEP on it and use it to run the sager for when I want to acess the internet. I could also just copy the old hard drive to the new, but I'll loose hyperthreading if I do that. ...
First off, DOH! Didn't even notice the sig...

Second, you cannot boot from an external HD (USB or Firewire) from the 8890, as far as I've heard. It's not typical (unfortunately).

Also, the rest of your post (quoted above) is really confusing... I am not sure I understand what you are trying to do: Hack into your school's wireless by taking the encrypted WEP key that somehow gets entered on your laptop and moving it to a new laptop? Why not just get the school to give you another key? (or have them type it in if they're paranoid)?

This sounds like a lot of work for a simple problem... course, a 1337 ninja h4x0r would just sniff the "air" and come up with the WEP key (I'll even bet it's only 64-bit).

What is your school's policy on wireless computing? You can't be the only one moving to a new laptop this year.

-myrkat
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post #7 of 17
8/21/03 at 10:42pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, here's the deal. My school makes every individual who goes there by an IBM laptop. Mine is an 800mhz pentium III IBM 22m. I like fast computers. I'm stuck at school for 9 hours on some days. I want the power of a desktop while I'm there. My old notebook has the WEP on it. I was hoping to take the old hard drive and run my 8890 on it when I don't have access to an ethernet port. It has the WEP on it. My school wont let any notebooks but theirs on the wireless. They will let them into the network using regular ethernet, but not the wireless. I've looked into WEP cracking, but its way beyond me how to work with it. Especially since it requires Linux skills. What I'm trying to do is not illegal, but does go against school policy. I have every right to access the network, but for some dumb reason they wont let me do so wirelessly with another computer.

I'm such an idiot! I can stick both hard drives in the 8890 and just do a duel boot. I don't need the enclosure at all. This has been worrying me all summer and I couldn't see the easiest solution.
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post #8 of 17
8/22/03 at 2:39am
Yep, sometimes the answers are so right in front of you that you simply can not see them. Dual boot would seem to be the answer.

As for reasons why they will only let their computers access their wireless, duh, follow the scent of the money. I would not be too surprised they are getting a real sweetheart of a deal on the computers they are virtually forcing students to buy. They let you on the ethernet, most likely because there are so many restrictions of restricting that kind of access and it gives them an out on the wireless. If you complain about the deal, they can say you can use the ethernet all you like with whatever you want, but not their WiFi.

I'd also not be too surprised the entire system has been compromised by wardrivers and you should be able to get the WEP fairly easily from the community around there. A school would likely have a large number of access points and lots of bandwidth on their incoming internet access, so its a natural target to leech onto. Whatever bandwidth the leechers take would likely get lost in the shuffle. Plus imagine all the noobs on that WiFi, just like sweet little lambs lined up for the wolves.
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post #9 of 17
8/22/03 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
Yep, Its already been compromised I just can't find anyone to tell me what it is.
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post #10 of 17
8/24/03 at 4:54pm
I dont understand why the new 8890 can't boot from usb hdd/cdrom. This is not new technology, people have been booting from these devices for a while now. The bios should and better have this option!
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post #11 of 17
8/24/03 at 6:44pm
Well I doubt you will be able to boot off the hd from the other laptop. The drivers on it will be completly wrong for the sager. You'll get blue screen more than likely. Ive only had one motherboard swap out, that I got to run off the hard drive setup for a different mobo with. If they set up the key on your comp, what do they do if your old laptop dies? Do you bring it in, and they give you a new one? Or do you have to buy a new one? Tell them the os crashed, and ask them how you get a new key for it, after reformating. Then you could put a keylogger program on it, and if they have to enter it on their own for you, have the keylogger running, and BAM you got your wep key.
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post #12 of 17
8/24/03 at 6:48pm
but the bios should still give you the option .. for people that would like to do so with a blank hdd
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post #13 of 17
8/24/03 at 7:04pm
http://www.kmint21.com/keylogger/ Found a free one that isnt on a hackzor site. Tested it seems ok. You can hide it completly, and you could uninstall it after you got the key. Yes they should give you that option, but I dont really see doing anymore then booting off a usb connection. Firewire Id rather have for that option then usb. Unless it was 2.0 you'd have a big bottleneck. Use that keylogger man. Go in, and mess up your wep settings, or reset them, or reformat the drive so they need to reenter the key for you. Run the key logger, and give them the laptop to enter your new key. Bang zoom. You got your key. Enjoy.
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post #14 of 17
8/24/03 at 8:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by rkingston
Well I doubt you will be able to boot off the hd from the other laptop. The drivers on it will be completly wrong for the sager. You'll get blue screen more than likely. Ive only had one motherboard swap out, that I got to run off the hard drive setup for a different mobo with. If they set up the key on your comp, what do they do if your old laptop dies? Do you bring it in, and they give you a new one? Or do you have to buy a new one? Tell them the os crashed, and ask them how you get a new key for it, after reformating. Then you could put a keylogger program on it, and if they have to enter it on their own for you, have the keylogger running, and BAM you got your wep key.
Everything is plug and play. I've done this before. Windows detects all the new hardware and you install the drivers yourself.

As for keylogger I've already beat you to it. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks anyway
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post #15 of 17
8/25/03 at 4:57pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by Shadowhwk
As for keylogger I've already beat you to it. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks anyway
Keyloger worked
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post #16 of 17
8/28/03 at 5:44am
lol yup lot less work that way huh?
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post #17 of 17
8/28/03 at 10:03am
Thread Starter 
Yep, I was also a bit miffed at myself that they were only using 40 bit encryption. I could have used a brute force crack to gain it with very little problems.
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