Windows To Go taking a long time to boot

[Duo01]

Hi,

So I made a Windows To Go USB using Rufus (basically the unofficial way of doing windows to go) and it's taking a long time to boot. (An hour now.)

I'm using a SanDisk USB. Is this normal? I tested the USB on a VM and it took a long time aswell and never booted. 

 

I may just be impatient and my guess to why it's taking so long is because flash drives have slow read and write speeds. 

 

Some confirmation or information would be appreciated! Thanks!

[Biohazard777]

20 minutes ago, Duo01 said:

I may just be impatient and my guess to why it's taking so long is because flash drives have slow read and write speeds. 

Cheap ones are slow, sure, but even with the cheapest flash drive it shouldn't take an hour... Either the drive is defective or the OS live image is bad.

[BondiBlue]

To start with Windows doesn't run well from a flash drive. At the minimum you should use an external hard drive, but preferably an external SSD. However, it should have booted by now, even though the performance would be terrible. Have you tried WinToUSB?

[Duo01]

11 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

To start with Windows doesn't run well from a flash drive. At the minimum you should use an external hard drive, but preferably an external SSD. However, it should have booted by now, even though the performance would be terrible. Have you tried WinToUSB?

I can try WinToUSB, originally I tried WinToUSB for something else but other videos I watched said to use Rufus alternatively as it was more "reliable".

[LogicalDrm]

Even USB3 flash drives are slower than USB3 external SSD. I have not tried to run Windows, but booting Linux off USB took like 30mins.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

Even USB3 flash drives are slower than USB3 external SSD. I have not tried to run Windows, but booting Linux off USB took like 30mins.

Did you accidentally plug it into a potato or just have really awful USB sticks?

I've created Linux persistent storage sticks before using Rufus and they run relatively well.

I can imagine Windows being a problem as its not designed for it, but as Linux is common on read-only live installers it IS designed to work well off a USB stick.

[Duo01]

Linux worked completely fine on the drive and the laptop I was plugging it into had like 12 gb of ram and a i5 processor. 

[Duo01]

On 5/18/2021 at 3:14 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Did you accidentally plug it into a potato or just have really awful USB sticks?

I've created Linux persistent storage sticks before using Rufus and they run relatively well.

I can imagine Windows being a problem as its not designed for it, but as Linux is common on read-only live installers it IS designed to work well off a USB stick.

The USB was from SanDisk.

[GoodBytes]

On 5/18/2021 at 1:15 PM, LogicalDrm said:

Even USB3 flash drives are slower than USB3 external SSD. I have not tried to run Windows, but booting Linux off USB took like 30mins.

I have encountered USB 3 flash drive which perform worse than USB 2. Basically, they are chip one would put on a USB 2.0 budget flash drive, but are using a USB 3 controller, and marketed as such as if it would suggest "high performance". Personally, I have a feeling that would be the type of company that would call a combustion engine car a hybrid car, as the car has a led acid car battery. Or pull an ASrock, where they released a motherboard that claims to support a 65W+ TDP CPU, and while technically it does support a 65W+ TDP CPU, as in the system will powerup, it is unable to deliver the power to the CPU for it actually go to its full performance as the board power delivery circuit is power limited.... Hmm.. maybe ASrock hired the same marketing company.

 

Anyway, perform a speed test on your USB flash drive, don't assume performance by peek read performance and USB connector version (or type... do you guys remember phones with USB Type-C.. making people think it was USB 3, but is really USB 2.0... ah fun days...)