External HardDrive Help...

[ShadowSniper]

I just Bought a 120Gig External HardDrive and i want to put An O/S on it how do i do that?

(i bought an external HDD because all my PC games take up all my HDD space in my computer :P)

 

[iandvedwards]

You will need to check that your system bios supports USB Bootable devices first, and if necessary you should be able to install windows onto it and then make it the default boot device in system bios.

Hope this helps!

 

[ShadowSniper]

my bios supports USB bootable devices so how do i put the O/S on?

 

[iandvedwards]

You should be able to boot from the windows CD, and select your External drive as the install location.

 

[AstaLaVista]

plug in your external prior to booting, open up your Bios just to see if the Bios recognizes the external drive and that the CD is your first boot option, insert your windows CD on the drive and restart with CD, let it do its thing and when it ask you where you want to install windows, just point it to the external drive.

I usually name all my drives to make it easy for me to find them, yes, I know... I am getting old

 

[ShadowSniper]

plug in your external prior to booting, open up your Bios just to see if the Bios recognizes the external drive and that the CD is your first boot option, insert your windows CD on the drive and restart with CD, let it do its thing and when it ask you where you want to install windows, just point it to the external drive.

I usually name all my drives to make it easy for me to find them, yes, I know... I am getting old

Thanks! im installing WinXP! but will my current drivers work for XP? i am running Vista Home Basic 32Bit

 

[iandvedwards]

You'll probably need to check the manufacturers site to see - usually there are different XP/W2K drivers to the Vista ones.

 

[iandvedwards]

plug in your external prior to booting, open up your Bios just to see if the Bios recognizes the external drive and that the CD is your first boot option, insert your windows CD on the drive and restart with CD, let it do its thing and when it ask you where you want to install windows, just point it to the external drive.

I usually name all my drives to make it easy for me to find them, yes, I know... I am getting old

You may find that when your PC boots up you have a "Quick Boot" shortcut, which is usually shown along with the "F2 for Setup". This enables you to boot from a CD without having to change the bios. It usually is either F8, or F12 and you press this while the initial System bios boot screen comes up (before you see the windows logo).

 

[AstaLaVista]

plug in your external prior to booting, open up your Bios just to see if the Bios recognizes the external drive and that the CD is your first boot option, insert your windows CD on the drive and restart with CD, let it do its thing and when it ask you where you want to install windows, just point it to the external drive.

I usually name all my drives to make it easy for me to find them, yes, I know... I am getting old

Thanks! im installing WinXP! but will my current drivers work for XP? i am running Vista Home Basic 32Bit

Your XP CD should bring the std (read: old) drivers for your hardware and it should be enough to let you boot to desktop, once you are there, I would encourage you to do what Ian suggested and look for newer/updated drivers for all your hardware as well as Windows Updates to keep up-to-date.

Good Luck.

 

[ShadowSniper]

Thanks for all the help guys! i hae windows Xp running on my external HDD now :P