Bootcamp and External HDs

A few months ago I purchased a copy of Windows xp and have been running it through bootcamp ever since. The internal hd in my Mbp is 120 gb, so I decided to partition 30 gb for windows. Over time I have realized that 120 gb for a two separate operating systems is not enough memory. Now I have just about 12 gb left in my windows partition and about 42 gb left in my OSX partition. So I am faced with a few questions:

-Is it possible to use a large external hd as my windows disk? (ie have windows on an external hd and OSX on my internal drive)

-If the previous is possible, can I partition part of the external hd for windows and the other bit for some extra OSX storage space?

-If any of the previous two are possible, what brand/model of external hd is the best/ most reliable?

 

1. I think bootcamp requires the partition to be on the same disk as the OS X installation, not sure though.

2. You can partition the external drive however you want .

3. It's usually best to buy a case and put the drive in yourself. Often the drives in external drives are refurbished so they generally don't last as long(in my experience). It's also cheaper this way(usually). I prefer Seagate and Samsung drives. Other good brands are: Western Digital, Hitachi, Maxtor.

 

Thanks for the external drive recommendations, but I still need confirmation on whether or not this little scheme could work

 

As far as I know,it is not possible to have windows OS in an external hard drive.

I would recommend Western Digital external drives.I am using 2 of them and did not have a problem so far.

 

You must install Windows on the internal HD. It will not install to an external drive even on a Windows machine.

 

You might be able to install windows on an external disk and use a bootloader like rEFIt to boot off the disk, but it would be slow running an OS off USB.

 

Is it possible to format a hard drive part for windows and part for OSX? Not putting an os on the disk but just making it writable from each OS. By the way, wouldnt an external hd running through a firewire be just as fast as an internal?

 

Format your external HD as NTFS which OS X can read as well. No point in having multiple partitions when you don't need them.

 

1- Ofcourse. Format one partition to Journaled and the other to FAT.
2- It would be faster than USB, but still not as fast as internal. But I think I remember hearing somewhere that you couldn't boot off fireiwre? Idk I've never booted off any kind of external disk.

 

Yeah, just use Disk Utility to partition half to HFS+ and half to NTFS. Or you could do the whole thing as FAT32 with the limitation of 4GB file sizes.

There's also the option of eSATA via ExpressCard. I know speeds from those are just like having the drive in the computer.

 

i would honestly just look into upgrading the internal HDD yourself, unless you are still under warranty.

other words, you can definitely boot Leopard off of an external HDD, whether it be Firewire or USB, as long as it is formatted properly, which is very easy to do, I keep a backup install of Leopard on a small external, on a 8gb partition just incase I am unable to boot the internall HDD on my machine, and as a general trouble shooting tool. I am sure it is somehow possible to boot Windows off of an external HDD.

what particular reason do you use Windows?

 

I have windows basically as a compatibility umm.. safeguard? I like to play pc games or run windows only prgrams stuff like that. So is it definitely impossible to use bootcamp to put windows on an external?

 

FAQs
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1656

Installation Guide
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

looks like it needs to be the internal Startup Disk, it may be possible to setup a external install of Leopard on an external HDD, set it as your Startup disk then install bootcamp on the external. but you may have to leave the external Leopard install.

"I have more than one hard drive, can I install Microsoft Windows on any drive?

You can install only one Windows partition on any of your computer volumes. The Setup Assistant will allow you to partition drives, or to install Microsoft Windows on an entire drive if it does not contain Mac OS X. Note: You cannot install Microsoft Windows on an external hard drive."

 

I have an esata card, and whenever I go to boot into bootcamp, if I have it plugged in and the hdd's turned on, it will try to boot from the drive.

So I'm guessing since esata is basically like an internal drive, and the way that bootcamp boots up, you should be able to boot from windows, off of an esata drive.

I havn't actually had a bootable OS on the esata drives, but I'm guessing it would work.

 

OSX can be boot from firewire and USB. I have a backup partition on my firewire 800 drive and I can boot it. USB works too since I can boot of my USB stick.
Windows cant boot from USB or Firewire normally. There are hacks and tweaks that make it work but they are a bit complicated. The problem is that half way through the boot process Windows reloads USB/Firewire drivers. This breaks the booting process. There is a tweak online that forces Windows to load the USB driver early so the boot process is uninterrupted.
I have never tried eSata but I am pretty sure it will work. It depends on the esata card. If windows loads the drivers early and not like USB drivers then should be good.
I am using a 500gb external as my main external driver. Partitioned into 200GB for time machine, 200gb HFS+ for storage, and about 80GB NTFS for windows games. I have Macdrive so I can read and write to HFS+ in windows. I put all my games on the external because it is actually faster using firewire then my internal 160GB 7200rpm drive. Also I decided that I will not game while on the road so I can leave all my games at home with the external. Freed up a lot of space for me so now 35GB for windows is more then enough.