Possible to boot off an external (Firewire) harddrive?

[GTaudiophile]

IE, make that external drive the C: drive and install the OS to it?

 

[NumbaJuan]

i would say yes, if your mobo supports that boot option

 

[gsellis]

Only if the BIOS supports it, and they rarely do. MACs can, but I do not remember any PCs that do. But, the last time I checked was about 1 1/2 years ago.

 

[Hikari]

Not quite sure, but I know Windows XP's intall program saw my iPod (firewire iPod)during the choose where to install it portion of the installation.

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
IE, make that external drive the C: drive and install the OS to it?

 

[biostud]

WinXP always wants to install on my Firewire harddrive when re-installing as it's the largest drive. I've never tried to do it though 😛

 

[WalkingDead]

Not firewire but a lot of the current mobo bios support booting from USB device. I had no problem booting my computer to dos and linux with a USB key. An USB 2 external HDD should works the same way.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: biostud
WinXP always wants to install on my Firewire harddrive when re-installing as it's the largest drive. I've never tried to do it though 😛

SO your drive is given a drive letter by the BIOS and XP's setup program can see it?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: biostud
WinXP always wants to install on my Firewire harddrive when re-installing as it's the largest drive. I've never tried to do it though 😛

SO your drive is given a drive letter by the BIOS and XP's setup program can see it?

It might be booting from the WinXP CD installs some native Fire-wire drivers, and assign a letter.
I know my notebook can boot from USB devices, as it has no internal CD-Rom.

 

[GTaudiophile]

My laptop (an HP ZT3300) only has a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive and an SD card reader. Unfortunately, I only see boot options for the harddrive and DVD/CD drive. Nothing for the SD reader.

 

[gsellis]

How about installing from the DVD/CD? Bart's PE Builder?