Can you install XP on an external hard drive

[Phredawgy]

And boot from it?

My old 60G hard drive died and am now using a 10G backup...it's got less than 2G left free space so I can't install anything else on it. My GF got me a 360G IO Magic External hd for my birthday and we can't find the receipt..but I wanted to know if they can be used as your main drive or if not can you install programs and run them from the external drive?

 

[kimsland]

The new external HardDrive, although Sata, will not mount (or fit) into your computer box (because it's physically too small, and you probably don't have Sata connection on your old Motherboard).

Even programs installed onto other HardDrives (or Partitions) still write files to Windows folder; Registry; Temp folders and lots of logs and things. So just installing elsewhere (other than to the main Windows boot drive) won't help that much

You are best to purchase another internal HardDrive (probably ATA not Sata), and then install Windows on it