Operating system on removeable hardrive, can you remove?

[Sxotty]

Ok
If the OS (WinXP) is on a removeable USB harddrive, can I put the computer in standby and remove the drive. Then later plug it back in and make it wake up?

I want to know b/c it is necessary for the design of a theoretical system I want to make.

If no one knows can I at least get some information.

When you put a compute rin stanby mode does the USB line turn off?
If so I could theoretically install some switch to remove the drive.

Alternatively can anyone think of a way to trick the computer? If the computer is in standby and therefore not trying to acess the hard drive maybe there is some way to trick it and be able to remove it without the computer detecting it?

Any ideas? Any places to look? I have google'd and searched but I just cannot find any information at all about whether this would be possible.

 

[_xxx_]

Why not just try it with some crappy old system and see if it works?

Why do you want to do that anyway? That install will run nowhere else but on that very machine, so what's the point?

 

[Bludd]

I used to do this with WinMe (don't get me started! ) on an internal drive. It was a bit of a hassle, but it worked great. Windows just detected the hardware of the new machine I plugged the drive into and it just worked.

 

[_xxx_]

It was possible with Win9x/Me, but I never got 2000/XP to work if the two machines had different chipsets.

 

[PC-Engine]

It was possible with Win9x/Me, but I never got 2000/XP to work if the two machines had different chipsets.

Probably has to do with MS requiring XP activation?

 

[Sxotty]

I do not want to use winxp on different machines.

I want to make a car PC that I can put on standby when I turn off my car.

Then I want to take the harddrive with me to use as data storage only.

 

[_xxx_]

It was possible with Win9x/Me, but I never got 2000/XP to work if the two machines had different chipsets.

Probably has to do with MS requiring XP activation?

Nope, corporate edition.

 

[_xxx_]

I do not want to use winxp on different machines.

I want to make a car PC that I can put on standby when I turn off my car.

Then I want to take the harddrive with me to use as data storage only.

You have a PC in your car?

That should work, as long as you don't overwrite anything important. The best would be to make two partitions, one for Win and the other one for storage.