The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Portable external HD questions

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by kns, Mar 14, 2009.

  1. kns

    kns Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    231
    Messages:
    642
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I've never had one before, so would like to know:

    1. Beside the storage capacity, what factors to look for in buying a portable external HD for a laptop?

    2. Suppose I have the OS XP on my laptop, and also have disc for another OS (say Vista). Can I insert this other disc (Vista) in the external HD and run my laptop on Vista? How does the laptop know whether to boot with the XP on the internal HD or to boot with the Vista on the external drive? How does it work?

    I'm sure you can see I'm very ignorant :p Thanks for any replies.
     
    kns, Mar 14, 2009
    #1
  2. mullenbooger

    mullenbooger Former New York Giant

    Reputations:
    298
    Messages:
    900
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Are you getting the external drive just to dual boot? Because you can do that on your internal drive if its big enough for both OS's. Just need to set up multiple partitions
     
    mullenbooger, Mar 14, 2009
    #2
  3. kns

    kns Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    231
    Messages:
    642
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    No, not just for dual boot. So what if I use external drive?
     
    kns, Mar 14, 2009
    #3
  4. mullenbooger

    mullenbooger Former New York Giant

    Reputations:
    298
    Messages:
    900
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I believe you can do it. I think you would just need to check to see if in the bios you can change the boot order so that it boots the usb first. It will probably run slower since you are limited to USB2 speeds, but I honestly don't know how big of a difference it will make.
     
    mullenbooger, Mar 14, 2009
    #4
  5. Peto

    Peto Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    -11
    Messages:
    40
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I we got 500GB WD passport and Book 3,5 1TB
     
    Peto, Mar 14, 2009
    #5