Please use the correct terminology.

Both SATA & SCSI drives can be housed outside the
Computer, which makes them external, but not necessarily
removable (Hot Dockable).

While outside the "Physical" PC they are to XP, considered
to be a "Fixed"/(Internal) drive. They will not have the optional
Policy of optimizing for Fast Removal.

It is the REMOVABLE attribute that prevents XP from being
installed on a Drive/Flash device.

USB drives of any type are considered by XP to be removable.

"Carey Frisch [MVP]" <cnfrisch@nospamgmail.com> wrote in message
news:uAiNQKLEGHA.216@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Neither Windows XP or Vista (beta) can be
> installed and run from an external drive.
>
> Comprendo?
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows - Shell/User
> Microsoft Community Newsgroups
> news://msnews.microsoft.com/
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "liu" wrote:
>
> | It's a IDE drive turned into external USB drive connected through USB 2
> | port on a laptop.
>

Has anyone get it to work as described in claimed success? It appears
to be a lot of work. Maybe it's easier by installing something like
Virtual PC or VMWare on my external drive and then install the system
there. Has anyone tried that route? How is the speed?

THANKS!