Can you install an OS on an external hdd hooked up through USB?

S

Southy

New Member
Hi all,
I'm just curious to see if anyone knows if its possible to install an OS such as Windows on an external hdd hooked up through USB? Basically what I'm wondering is, can you use a good working computer to install an OS onto an external hdd successfully and without messing up any of the good computers configurations?
 
Yes I think you can, as long as you have the option in your BIOS to boot from a USB drive, which many new BIOS's accept now anyway:), mines over a year old and it accepts it!
 
don't thionk you can install windows though, because of the verification thing. i tihnk it owuld like work once, then not work. But i know you can do it with many linux distros
 
lee101 said:
don't thionk you can install windows though, because of the verification thing. i tihnk it owuld like work once, then not work. But i know you can do it with many linux distros
Click to expand...
well I would be using a verified copy of windows to install ... or I could put linux onto it just to test it out... I just need to know how ....
 
i think whatever copy of windows you put on it might not work, due to the way it installs, i would wait for someone else to verify. Although it wouldn't harm to try, just don't activate it until you are sure it works so you can use it again if necessary
 
I dont see why it wouldnt work. Although getting it installed is a different story. You would most likely have to take the drive(lets call this drive 1) out of the USB hub it is in and put it into your pc. Of cource you would take the hard drive thats in the pc (lets call this one drive 2) and stick it someplace safe before sticking in the drive 1. And then you install windows as normal. Take drive 1 out and stick it in its USB hub. Take hard drive 2 and stick it back into pc. And there you go. With your boot sequence in
USB
CD ROM
HDD
you should be able to boot from the usb drive whenever it is plugged in, and when it is unplugged you boot from the normal drive.
 
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kobaj said:
I dont see why it wouldnt work. Although getting it installed is a different story. You would most likely have to take the drive(lets call this drive 1) out of the USB hub it is in and put it into your pc. Of cource you would take the hard drive thats in the pc (lets call this one drive 2) and stick it someplace safe before sticking in the drive 1. And then you install windows as normal. Take drive 1 out and stick it in its USB hub. Take hard drive 2 and stick it back into pc. And there you go. With your bot sequence in
USB
CD ROM
HDD
you should be able to boot from the usb drive whenever it is plugged in, and when it is unplugged you boot from the normal drive.
Click to expand...
yeah I would do that, but I can't.... the external drive I am trying to install windows onto is an internal laptop hard drive hooked up externally through a USB to IDE cable (which i'm sorry I forgot to mention)...

the laptop that the drive is out of will not seem to complete the install of windows normally, so I'm trying to install windows using another method so that I can just slap it back into the original laptop and it should work fine...

hense I'm not really concerned about booting it, as I will just put it back into the original laptop to boot, I am only concerned about installing a clean version of an OS onto the drive for it to work.

Sorry for all the confusion.
 
You would have to install the OS in same computer that you plan on using it in. You can't install it from one system and put the drive in another system to use it, it just won't work. all the hardware would be different.
 
I got told that windows had to be installed on Disk 0, Partition 0. Meaning the first partition on the master drive. And i take it USB wouldn't be the master drive.

Try Linux.

Hope it helps, Rowan.
 
Parky_007 said:
I got told that windows had to be installed on Disk 0, Partition 0. Meaning the first partition on the master drive. And i take it USB wouldn't be the master drive.

Try Linux.

Hope it helps, Rowan.
Click to expand...

yeh you could it because youhave the usb as the masterdrive.. if you just didnt have an internal disk.. then when you go to install.. it will only have one place to install it from.. although im not sure it would work if you tried to plug it into another pc.. beware!
 
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