How to Make External Hard Drive Bootable in Windows 10

"Hi, what's the best way to make an external hard drive bootable? You see. Like copying all the Windows boot files to it so that I can boot Windows 10 from the bootable drive. Please, an easier way is much more appreciated."

There are many significant reasons for creating a bootable HDD or USB drive that carries a user's customized Windows operating system. For example, when your PC unexpectedly shuts down and can be never turned on due to hard disk failure or system corruption, you can still easily start the computer from the bootable drive. A bootable external hard drive also does great help when a computer's dead or crashed. Besides, with a bootable external USB drive, you can use your own operating system wherever you go and whenever you like. To enjoy these advantages though creating a bootable external hard drive, you have three workable methods to choose.

How to Make an External Hard Drive Bootable with EaseUS Todo Backup

Applies to: Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP (32-bit and 64-bit)

The simplest and quickest way to make an external hard drive bootable is to use the Windows backup software - EaseUS Todo Backup. EaseUS Todo Backup is recognized as the best system backup software as well as disk/partition clone utility that includes a highlighted feature called "Create Portable Windows USB drive". It's available in the "System Clone" function. The software will clone all system files, boot files and other personalized data files to the target drive. Simply prepare your external hard drive which you're going to make bootable, and follow the video tutorial or detailed steps below to make an external hard drive bootable in Windows 10 or other supportable OS.

Video tutorial:

Detailed guide:

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer and make Windows recognize the drive. Now launch EaseUS Todo Backup and click "System Clone".

Step 2. The software has chosen the entire Windows 10 system partition and boot partition by default, so you just choose the external hard drive as the destination drive.

In "Advanced options", there are three extra Windows 10 system clone features for you to choose from.

Optimize for SSD: tick this option if the destination hard disk is a Solid State Drive.

Sector by sector clone: tick this option if you wish to clone everything from the source disk including the blank space.

Create a portable Windows USB drive: tick this option so that the cloned external hard disk is able to boot normally.

Step 3. Click "Proceed" to immediately clone Windows 10 to an external hard drive.

You should now create your own bootable hard drive with EaseUS Todo Backup software. After it's done, you can boot a computer from the external hard drive:

• Connect the external hard drive to the computer
• Restart the computer and press "F2" or "Del" to enter BIOS settings
• In the Boot option, select the external hard drive as the new boot drive and save all the changes.
• Exit BIOS and restart the computer, you should be able to see Windows 10 running on your new disk without any problem

In addition to being a bootable HDD/SSD/USB creator, EaseUS Todo Backup also works well in backing up or cloning hard drive, SSD, and external storage devices. With it, you can not only do things like migrating Windows 10 to SSD but also back up and restore your computer hard drive, partition, files, and OutLook emails. Since data loss happens on a daily basis, it's really a wise choice to equip your computer with such backup software.

Method 2. Make an External Hard Drive Bootable with Windows Command Prompt

Applies To: Windows 10/8/7

Windows Command Prompt can be also used methods to create a bootable external hard drive in Windows 10, 8 or 7. But compared to method 1, this solution is more complex and is likely to cause boot failure. Be cautious while you operate.

Step 1. Format the external hard drive.

Make sure that your external hard drive has been correctly formatted. You can format a hard drive using cmd or a formatting tool. 

Step 2. Copy the Windows 10 installer files.

First, insert your Windows DVD into the optical drive. Click on "Start" and search for "Command Prompt", right-click on it and click "Run" as administrator then click "Yes" to continue.

Step 3. On the Command Prompt Admin (Windows + X), enter the command in the following:

g:(Where "g" is your DVD drive letter)

cd boot (changes to boot directory)

G:\bootbootsect /nt60 d: (Where "d" is your external drive letter)

Second, copy all files from the Windows CD to the drive using xcopy by entering the command in the following:

cd\

G:\xcopy g:\*.* /s/h/f d:\

All those commands are used to make your external hard drive bootable. Select the bootable drive at the Windows startup, it will boot Windows immediately.

Method 3. Make a Bootable External Hard Drive with Windows Built-in Feature

Applies To: Windows 10 Enterprise/Education/Pro and Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise

In Windows 10 Enterprise/Education/Pro and Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise, there is a built-in feature that enables you to create a Windows To Go workspace by creating an imaged version of Windows on Windows-compatible external hard drives. However, unlike EaseUS Todo Backup that is available for all Windows versions. This feature is only accessible for Windows 10 Enterprise/Education/Pro and Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise users and only certified USB drives can be made bootable.

Requirements for USB Drives:

• Has high random read/write speeds and can run Windows workloads smoothly
• Has been tuned to ensure they boot and run on hardware certified for use with Windows 7 and later
• Is backed with manufacturer warranties and should continue operating under normal usage

If you are using the right Windows version and have a certified external hard drive, you can make the external hard drive bootable. (This process will format your external hard drive, back up your external hard drive in advance.)

Step 1. Download the related installation ISO file from Microsoft and connect the hard drive to your computer.

Step 2. Go to "Control Panel" and find "Windows To Go".

Step 3. Choose the external hard drive and click "Next".

Step 4. Click "Add search location" to search for the ISO file.

Step 5. Select the ISO file to make the external hard drive bootable.

Step 6. Choose whether to use BitLocker or not. If you do, be sure you won't forget the password.

Step 7. Click "Create" to confirm. (Windows will format your external hard drive during the process. If there is any data you want to recover, learn how to recover data from external hard drive here.)

Step 8. Wait for the process to finish. When it's done, a bootable external hard drive is successfully created.