External hard drive

[slick68]

I have a 160gig external hard drive for my laptop and I want to put windows xp on and make it my primary hard drive. So when I cut on the computer it would boot from the external instead of the internal.Is there any way this can be done.Thanks for any help

 

[link590o]

i believe so. i've never actually done it with an external, but i think the principle is the same. you'll have to format both drives first.

i think this can be done through the XP setup disc. and you can select which hard drive you want to install XP onto. if it sees your external, then select it and install it there.

i BELIEVE that is how it can be done. but i don't know the specifics, or whether it will even see the external when you reformat everything. so if you try anything, be careful.

 

[Rik]

That depends if its bios allows booting from a usb device.

In my opinion what you suggest is a bad idea as external hard drives aren't designed for being run for long periods and as a result get very hot and often fail because of said heat.

 

[poertner_1274]

Just one question....why would you want to do that? If you are going to be using that computer on a regular basis it makes no sense.

BTW
:wave:Welcome to TechSpot:wave:

 

[slick68]

Thanks for the welcome,great site.Just wanted to know if it could be done,just in case my internal dies I could have a backup since my laptop is about 4 years old and is on more than off.If any of you have a 14 year daughter then you know what I mean, she is on myspace like 24-7

 

[LookinAround]

1. Given the difference in communication speeds between an internal drive communicating to the processor over an internal bus vs. an external drive communicating over USB i don't think you really want to do as described
2. If you're concerned what to do after losing your internal drive? Just buy a copy of good backup/recovery software like Acronis True Image (like 50bucks). Do backups and/or clone an image of your internal onto the external.
   
   If you should lose the internal, you can boot from Acronis recovery CD to recover and get to all your files and restore them. Just learn how to replace your internal should it come to it.

 

[poertner_1274]

Slick68, I think you would be better off using some type of ghosting software and take a backup of that HDD, and copy it to the USB drive. Then if something happens you can run to Circuit City or Best Buy, etc. and get a new HDD and copy that image to the new HDD and be back up and running in no time.

Just something to think about.

 

[LookinAround]

:wave: I agree.

Isn't that what i just said?

In any case, now he has two thumbs up on that approach