Can't find IDE/AHCI option in BIOS

C

Connor

New Member
I'm dual booting XP and Win7 on a Dell Latitude D520. I'm trying to install Win7 on an external hard drive to free up space on my internal disk. When trying to install Win7 on the external drive, it says "Ensure the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu." However in my BIOS menu I see no option for this. I've looked like 5 times. Is there any way to resolve this?
 
On some of the older laptops, there is no ide/ahci option. Are you sure the laptop supports booting to usb?
 
If its only 40 gb, you'll need a bigger drive. Just the operating systems themselves will take up that much space. Besides, you won't have ide/ahci on an external hdd. You can clone existing drive to new and should boot up just fine with extra space.
 
johnb35 said:
If its only 40 gb, you'll need a bigger drive. Just the operating systems themselves will take up that much space. Besides, you won't have ide/ahci on an external hdd. You can clone existing drive to new and should boot up just fine with extra space.
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So I would put the 80GB external drive into the laptop to replace what I have now? How do I clone my current one onto that one? How do I verify that the external drive is compatible and do I need to install any new drivers for it prior to cloning and installing it? Thank you for the help by the way. I'm still learning a lot of this stuff.
 
I would get something bigger then an 80gb drive. 500gb at least. Most HDD companies have free software you can use to clone existing to new drive.
 
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