2 computers, 2 Operating Systems and 1 Ext. Hard Drive?

S

Smudge

New Member
Is this possible? I have one machine running MS Windows Media Center and one machine running Vista Premium. I do not want the info between the computers to be the same as they are used by two different people. The desktop with Windows Media has a 250 GB HD with about 40GB of data on it. The other machine has a 160GB HD with about 20 GB of space used. Can I do this and if so how big of an Ext Hard Drive should I look to purchase? Thanks
 
Running Windows off an external drive won't be all that fast, especially if its USB.

You could load a boot loader on your system and then make entries for each volume on the external drive. This is something you would have to manually set up.
 
tlarkin said:
Running Windows off an external drive won't be all that fast, especially if its USB.

You could load a boot loader on your system and then make entries for each volume on the external drive. This is something you would have to manually set up.
Click to expand...

I want to backup data on each machine with the capability to be able to restore.
 
Are you asking if you can run 2 systems off one external HDD? For example: two units each with a different OS next to each other running on the same external HDD at once? If so, no. You can partition the external drive and dual-boot (have both OS's on it), but will only be able to use one at a time.

If you're asking if you can use the external HDD to back up the files of both systems via a network, then yes.
 
Smudge said:
I have two systems. I want to backup each one (at different times) to an external HD.
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Then you'll be fine. You just need to set-up a home network via Windows so you can access the external drive from either computer. Either that, or just keep on switching the USB to whatever computer you want to back up.

Edit: You might want to split the external drive into two partitions, one for XP and one for Vista, just to have things organized, but no biggie if you don't.
 
Smudge said:
Is this possible? I have one machine running MS Windows Media Center and one machine running Vista Premium. I do not want the info between the computers to be the same as they are used by two different people. The desktop with Windows Media has a 250 GB HD with about 40GB of data on it. The other machine has a 160GB HD with about 20 GB of space used. Can I do this and if so how big of an Ext Hard Drive should I look to purchase? Thanks
Click to expand...

You haven't said what you want to do.
 
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