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I have dual booted Windows and Linux before and I am aware virtual environments exist, however I was curious recently. If I have a 1 tb 'wd elements' external hard drive, could I download and install the entirety of a windows environment for plug and play windows capabilities with a main Linux system?

My idea: I plug this hard drive into my computer, boot up and pick windows from the grub menu. If it's unplugged Linux starts automatically as is typical, no grub.

I mainly want to do this for low storage space laptops where I can't partition much to a windows space, and virtual environments aren't the same.

Cmerdman
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  • Unlike Linux distros, Windows can't be installed in external drives. – ChanganAuto Jul 31 '21 at 01:12
  • It's called Windows OTG, RUFUS can help do that on a Windows ISO. However, it has been deprecated since Windows 10 1909, it may still appear to work for later versions but will likely get bluescreens and update failure time to time – Cerlancism Jul 31 '21 at 05:43
  • @ChanganAuto: Step #1: install Windows on an internal drive. Step #2: install a cable extender between the port on the motherboard and the drive, and put the drive outside of the computer case. Now, what you are claiming is that Windows is going to know that the drive is no longer inside the case and refuse to work? How would it even be able to distinguish between the drive being internal and external? Is there a camera mounted on the drive and Windows "takes a look around" to see whether it is inside the case or not? What if the drive is in an external case, then? – Jörg W Mittag Jul 31 '21 at 07:32
  • @JörgWMittag - if you extend the SATA bus by any method it will consider it internal. Do it over USB & it's external. Windows does not like to be run on an external & will actually refuse to boot without some tough love. Win2Go was made to address this, but abandoned after its abysmal performance issues. – Tetsujin Jul 31 '21 at 09:54
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    Does this answer your question? [Windows OS on external hard drive](https://superuser.com/questions/960558/windows-os-on-external-hard-drive) – Cerlancism Jul 31 '21 at 09:59
  • @Ramhound: What would you call a drive that is not internal to the case but mounted external to it? – Jörg W Mittag Jul 31 '21 at 10:01
  • @Ramhound: I am still confused by your distinction between "external" and "outside". To the best of my understanding, those two terms are synonyms, are they not? So, based on your definition, an internal drive connected by USB is an external drive, but an external drive connected by FireWire or FibreChannel or iSCSI or AoE is an internal drive, is that correct? – Jörg W Mittag Jul 31 '21 at 10:21
  • FireWire hasn’t been seen in over a decade. It’s about as slow as USB 2. – Ramhound Jul 31 '21 at 17:39

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