Booting my computer from a external hard drive

Im trying to get one of my computers to boot from an external hard drive. What i thought would be a simple task is becoming increasingly difficult. Ive already tried going into the BIOS to change the boot options, enabling the USB boot option. On the first computer it had the option in the BIOS so i enabled it. I still couldn't get it to boot from USB. The second didn't even have that option available in the BIOS menu.

First could someone help me to understand what it is I need to do to make my external hard drive boot able. and second could someone possibly let me know what I need to do to add the USB configuration to my BIOS?

Im currently running XP on both computers...

 

Hi and welcome to the BBS,

Do you know that Windows will not boot from a USB external HDD? Are you trying to boot to Windows? The only external HDD you can boot Windows from is an eSATA connection (which is effectively the same as connecting it to a SATA connection on the motherboard). Let us know if you are trying to boot to Windows or another operating system.

Matt

 

Im trying to boot Ubuntu. Im trying to mess around with alternate OS without altering my current HD. I have seen this done before with a version of windows. I just cant get in touch with the person that had his pc running off of an external hard drive.

 

The partition you want to boot to needs to be Primary (not Logical/Extended). It needs to be set as Active. You could check those using Disk Management (look it up in Help and Support).

If Ubuntu was installed onto the drive it should have the necessary boot files. Check the instructions for installing it.

In the BIOS you need to have a boot or startup option for a USB drive, then set that drive to boot before the Windows drive (HDD). It searches for boot files, you need to set the ones you want to boot to as the first ones it finds.

If you don't have the option to boot to a USB drive in the BIOS, there MIGHT be a BIOS upgrade that addresses it. Be careful that you use the correct BIOS upgrade (tip: read the instructions). There will be information about what the upgrade does included on the website or in the upgrade download. If you can't see that it will give you the option you want, I wouldn't search too much further.

Matt

 

Hi all,

I have basically the same question. Is not changing the boot sequence simply enough to have the external HDD boot the system? (WinXP-SP3). My internal drive is overheating to the point of replacement.

Which is a whole new dilemma. Do i buy a new drive and hope software comes with the new one to clone my drive or get a cloning software program first?

Thank you in advance.

 

Windows won't run from an external USB drive. It will run from an external eSATA drive.

"Clone ", a lot of drive manufacturers offer software to copy your old HDD to your new one. I suggest you go to the manufacturer's website of the HDD you planning to buy, look up their installation/upgrading information.

Matt

 

Hi Matt

I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions. Also for for being so informative. The HDD manufacturer isn't much of a choice, it's either WD or Seagate, suppose. Both of whom say they have software for "cloning ".

Thank you again!