Life in an external enclosure. Preparing my drives.

[Uter]

Currently building a freeNAS server, and waiting for an updated MacBook Pro, I have one question. How to I prepare my two PATA drives for life in an external enclosure? They are being used this moment, on this soon to be replaced computer, and I want to put them in here. Ideally, they'll remain there, files intact, until I can transfer everything onto my freeNAS server. Once I do that, I'll probably format the hard drives and use them for who knows what. Will this be a quick edit of the boot.ini file? Or should I expect some heavy Windows modification?

 

[mercanucaribe]

Maybe some cooking lessons and change for laundry.

 

[Uter]

Hahaha :laugh: thanks, I had a pretty good laugh over that. Particularly since I'll be moving soon.

So was my question really that stupid? I mean, I can't just take my two hard drives and plug them in an external enclosure that easily, can I... One would think that having Windows installed might mess things up. You know, like when I plug the enclosure into another Windows based PC.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Uter
One would think that having Windows installed might mess things up. You know, like when I plug the enclosure into another Windows based PC.

Yeah, you can't have two Windows install on one computer, unless it's two different versions. So, just do a Windows deltree on the one that will be put into the enclosure, before uninstalling it.

 

[Uter]

Windows deltree eh? I'll have to Google search that, but thanks! I really appreciate it.

 

[alevasseur14]

...or you could just put them in the external enclosures and not worry about it. They will just show up as an external drive with all the files intact when you plug them into another computer.

I do it all the time when I'm fixing computers, it's not a big deal.

 

[ribbon13]

Yeah, the copy of windows in the external housing isn't going to commandeer your computer from the resident OS. They'll just other files on the disk.

I would suggest you defragment the drives whiles they are still internals.