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Can I run a OS off a External HDD
Name: bigboy Date: October 30, 2007 at 08:27:45 Pacific OS: windows XP CPU/Ram: AMD and 1 gigabyte Product: Acer 1500
Name: OtheHill Date: October 30, 2007 at 09:20:27 Pacific
Reply:
Well there may be a discussion about this but I am going to answer your question with a no. Why would you want to? If your thoughts are to move the OS around keep in mind every computer has different hardware, so even placing XP on an internal drive and installing it to a different computer usually results in the computer not booting. In addition to all that, USB is much slower than if the OS is installed to an internal drive with DMA and faster bus speeds.
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Response Number 2
Name: Outlander Date: October 30, 2007 at 10:15:10 Pacific
Reply:
The answer is yes....
So long as your bios supports it. Fore example external USB, or Firewire drive(Firewire much better and less overhead).
Go into the bios and see if it has an option to boot from USB, firewire, or other.
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Response Number 3
Name: bigboy Date: October 30, 2007 at 10:50:53 Pacific
Reply:
Thanks Everyone
Andrew
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Response Number 4
Name: OtheHill Date: October 30, 2007 at 11:41:11 Pacific
Reply:
Outlander, booting to a USB device and running an OS from an external drive are two different things.
Have you ever done that with WinXP.
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Response Number 5
Name: XpUser Date: October 30, 2007 at 13:11:37 Pacific
Reply:
..and if you did, please provide us with step by step details so that others can benefit from it.
i_Xp/VistaUser
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Response Number 6
Name: WebsWonder Date: October 30, 2007 at 13:55:53 Pacific
Name: Razor2.3 Date: October 30, 2007 at 22:44:04 Pacific
Reply:
Can you run an OS off of an external HDD? Yeah, probably.
Can you run XP from USB? No; the boot will hang when WinXP attempts to load the USB drivers.
This was actually fixed in one of Win2K3's service packs, which is how I got BartPE on my USB stick. In theory, that means Vista on USB is possible. I'd like to try it, but I don't have a USB enclosure. Any takers? Getting Vista (w/ boot loader) on the external would probably be the hardest part.
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