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midian3x
Joined: 18 Sep 2006
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 Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:45 am Post subject: Possible to boot up from a portable hard drive? |
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| Yay nay? |
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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:30 am Post subject: Re: Possible to boot up from a portable hard drive? |
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Depends on your motherboard and version of BIOS. |
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midian3x
Joined: 18 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:36 am Post subject: |
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| no idea- so i guess i could just copy xp to the portable and see? |
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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:37 am Post subject: |
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| midian3x wrote: |
| no idea- so i guess i could just copy xp to the portable and see? |
Try it.
Install xp on the external.
Change the BIOS settings to USB boot priority (if that isn't in the BIOS then it won't work). |
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sojourner1
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Location: Where meggi swim and 2 wheeled tractors go sput put chug alugg pug pug
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| Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:23 am Post subject: |
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It is a brilliant idea to be able to just pack a hard disk around the world and no computer and be able to plug it into a computer anywhere to have your system anywhere in the palm of your hand. To be able to use a portable external hard disk to boot up any computer, while bypassing the resident systems hard disk and bios boot sequence would be a pretty cool device to own, but I know of no such thing yet.
You can use an external USB drive about the size of a stick of spearmint chewing gum for this, but no need to carry Windows on you. You can have U3 software on your solid state thumb drive to ensure you have .pdf viewers, media players, and other applications where every you plug in at. These are also very cheap too so if the largest one is not enough, get 2 or more of them. They are good for carrying data, music, programs; anything that will fit on it.
These small USB keychain devices really are the first, "have a tiny computer without actually having to carry a computer in a briefcase," kind of device. Most are only 1 to 4 gigabytes, but that is enough when you don't have to pack Windows. No need to pack a laptop around SE Asia after your contract if you plan on a new one after that. As for packing a library of movies, shows, and games; get more memory, burn it to CD's, or wait until you get someplace to download the torrent for it's best to not have pirated stuff should customs agents search your electronics when going into an airport. Of course, whether you are packing a computer or not, you're always going to back up important information in at least 2 different places anyhow. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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I actually tried this once when I had PC problems. My XP equipped UMPC could be used as an external HDD if connected via USB device so I tried it out. It got halfway through and then froze out. Apparently the problem is the way XP tries to take control of the USB ports- taking over the device it's booting from- leading to unpredictable results.
If you modify your XP install with some files from Server 2003 it's possible according to a site I looked at. This handles the changeover of USB control in a more graceful way. Probably Vista would manage as well.
I didn't try that; I just used a boot disk and copied the important files over and then reinstalled. |
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dreadster
Joined: 08 May 2007
Location: Daegu, South Korea
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