Bootable W10 image on attached SSD?

[maigret]

Can you help me?

My partner has a Z83-4 with 4Gb Ram & 32Gb "disk" running W10 home. W10 is on the embedded 32Gb and all other stuff on 120Gb SSD connected through the USB 3 port.

All is good apart from the W10 update problem - currently stuck on 1709.

The box has a BIOS Project Version of CHT0A 1.60 x64.

Looking around the forum it seems possible to have a more up to date W10 image reside on the SSD and to set the bios to boot from there.

The questions ...

a) Is this possible with this set up?
b) Would it be sensible in terms of performance?
c) Which W10 image should I use?
d) Would this solve the ever present W10 update problem?

and e) if yes to the above how do I go about this?

I am not a total idiot but would be grateful for as much help as possible. There seems to be fragments of answers in various parts of the forum but I do not feel sufficiently confident to start this process without a guru giving me the thumbs up and guiding me in this task or pointing to where the guidance can be found.

Failure on my part would result in a painful death for me given this is my partner’s home-working PC.

Thanks
Paul

 

[Villa]

Can you help me?

First you need to update the BIOS to allow booting from the USB 3.0 port.
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/neo-z83-4-bios-v1-8.68/

 

[Villa]

a) Is this possible with this set up?

Yes

b) Would it be sensible in terms of performance?

I think so.

c) Which W10 image should I use?

If you are happy to do a clean install then this...
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/neo-z83-4-windows-10-home-os-image-1903.1946/
...then update further using Windows updates.

d) Would this solve the ever present W10 update problem?

Yes

 

[Villa]

There's a thread here you can have a read through...
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/booting-from-an-external-ssd-drive.2750/

As you can see I tried and it was successful but with some tweaking!
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/booting-from-an-external-ssd-drive.2750/post-21293
I using the cloning method but that is not needed for a clean install.
I ended up having to reset anyway!

The first thing you must do is backup any important data from the eMMC and the SSD.

 

[Villa]

If you want I will try the clean install method direct to external SSD.

I can then walk you through the steps.

 

[Villa]

but I do not feel sufficiently confident to start this process without a guru giving me the thumbs up and guiding me in this task or pointing to where the guidance can be found.

Heads up, I'm no guru, I'm the Forum idiot!!!

 

[maigret]

Thanks Villa for your comprehensive reply. I'll reserve judgement on guru or idiot status until after I have this sorted.

I'll go find me a spare SSD to start to play with. If as you suggest you try the clean install method it would be interesting to see if it is much easier that way.

Thanks again.