Skip Navigation
technology @hexbear.net
gay_king_prince_charles [she/her, he/him] @hexbear.net

Will installing Windows to an external USB HDD screw with my main drive?

I have a USB HDD that I'm hoping to install Windows on for a few games and other pieces of software. I know my load times will be miserable, but how poorly will things run once on ram? Lastly, Windows does like to screw with other operating systems on the same drive, will it play nice with my main drive as long as it's on the HDD?

11 comments

  • Easiest solution: remove the SSD before you install windows.

    Windows loves installing it's bootloader on other drives, but if your other drive isn't formatted in a way windows understands it shouldn't do that. But either way it shouldn't cause too many issues. Also if it's on a USB drive then you're using the windows to go option which especially shouldn't fuck with your SSD in any way.

  • I know my load times will be miserable

    They'd be very miserable. Also I've heard that Windows likes monopolizing your boot partition when installing by default but mechanically I think you can do it with enough diligence and after backing up your important stuffs.

    But honestly, my advice is to look into running Windows using Linux KVM+QEMU (through a front-end like virt-manager). If your system is too weak to virtualize Windows then I doubt you'd get any luck running windows on a USB HDD if the goal is to just run certain games and programs.

    • my advice is to look into running Windows using Linux KVM+QEMU

      I have a VM that works for some things, but performance is too slow for games or CAD and some software cannot run on a VM at all. I might see if I can set up GPU passthrough but I don't want to deal with that hassle because I've heard it's a pain.

      • It's not worth it if you have a single GPU (at that point just dual boot like you're planning to now), but if you have a second GPU then it's a very powerful option.

        You can always bite the bullet and have Windows and Linux be neighbors on the same drive though only Linux is chad enough to read from both OS's partitions. If your concern is with performance then I don't think Windows would be good at all on an external HDD.

  • Update:

    I tried this and it works great. Granted, you need a good book for installing games (it took me around 2 hours for both Battlefield 1 and Valorant) and loading (Battlefield 1 took 15 minutes to launch for the first time), but once everything is installed and loaded it runs almost as good as it did on Linux.

    Steps to recreate:

    1. Download Windows 11 (can't be Windows 10 unfortunately)
    2. Use Rufus (has to be Rufus, I had an old Windows machine lying around, thankfully) to install it to your drive and select the “Windows To Go” option
    3. Reboot to UEFI settings
    4. Select the USB drive as 1st in the boot order
    5. Continue to boot
    6. Read theory for 2 hours as you install things

    It won't screw up your main drive, for me Windows doesn't even recognize that there is a main drive. The only major pain point I had is that it somehow screwed up my Bluetooth, so use wired headphones.

11 comments