Re: Bootable external HD
- From: Chuck <cdkuder@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:14:02 -0500
The in general answer is yes, with a bunch of annoying little details!
The hardware and the BIOS need to support booting from an external device.
Next whatever you need to boot into needs to support the hardware.
Finally, with windows, in general ---
As sold and normally configured, windows was not intended for this type of use. (It can be done, but--)
Generally, windows once configured, is intended to be processor and support chip set specific. This is not to say that something like install or repair/recovery media cannot be made to boot from external removable media.
Linux has a built in functionality that allows it to configure on the fly, if setup properly. This assumes that all the required drivers are present/available, and that linux can properly detect the hardware.
The blessing and curse is that the user often needs to tweak, first manually, and then have the knowledge to make the needed "tweaks" occur automatically.
In other words, a lot is possible, it's more a matter of how to do it, and how much knowledge, time, and effort is required.
I routinely use a linux based bootable cd to host an anti virus/malware checker, which also contains utilities that can do quite a bit of repair
and hard disk oriented tasks. This works well with XP thru win7 on the majority of existing systems.
The old timers remember when --
BIOS was virtually nonexistent, and you had to toggle switches to manually enter a small program that gave a computer enough to start a boot process. In the really old days, this started a paper tape drive, which loaded a BIOS equivalent. Then, using the program and data from the tape load, other things, such as disk drives, displays(terminals) and keyboards became usable, and a "real" ops system was loaded and started.
PVR wrote:
Many thanks to those who replied. My PCs which I could consider for this activity are a Vista laptop and, more likely an XP3 desktop. I shall contact the external hard drive manufacturer..
Bottom line is I shall likely go the bootable CD route. It is probably good enough to allow me to play with Linux without undue commitment.
Peter.
"PVR" <peterv666@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eXn0TP7LKHA.504@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI have been mucking about with PCs since about 1982. However, I know very little about them. My question:
Is it possible to format and make an external hard drive bootable? I would like to check out another OS without causing problems of any kind to the OS on my desktop PC.
Many thanks,
Peter
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