Can Windows or any other OS be installed on USB Drive or and SD Card?

Question

I have a laptop with a built in SD / MMC Card Reader.

I was wondering if I could install windows on an SD Card would it increase the life of my battery in use as it no longer has to use electricity to keep the hard drive constantly spinning and if so by how much?

At the moment I have a Packard Bell Laptop which lasts about 2 hours on battery and sometimes all I want to do is type in a word processor. or as an Alternative which Operating system can easily be installed on to a 1GB or 2GB SD Card?

Answer 1

nope..... im pretty sure you would need the hard drive running anyway, even if the os wasnt on it.

Answer 2

That is a great concept, but the issue is the speed of transfer from the sd card to the cpu. If you where to increase your ram, say to 2 GB, and then adjust your power saving features so the hard drive sleeps after a few minutes you would probably have a better overall result. Also defragging the hard drive will help optimize the read write cycles of the drive and use less power.



If you are still interested there are two options, 1) there is linux distros such as knoppix which will run either from a cd, hard drive or flash card / memory card. 2) there is a way to run a variation on windows from a cd, called Bart PE, it is based on some software Microsoft released to build OEM computer systems for manufacturers who need to boot a system without going through the initial windows setup. It is not a full version of windows and doesn't work to do what you are looking for.

Answer 3

theoretically it can, because now days you can boot your computer from an USB port. but for your problem, there is no solution because now days OS consume large disk space (more than 1 or 2 GB), not to mention the word processor programs. then i think installing on a SD card doesn't solve the problem, yes USB drive consume less battery power but it also far more slow compared to disk drive, so maybe you'll be disappointed at the lack of speed to run a programs, and your USB Drive lifetime will be short.

best regard.

Answer 4

yes.It is possible to install a Windows OS from USB drive.But to do this Your Motherboard should support booting from USB driver.

Answer 5

3 words.





no.





and







don't!