Rummy Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 Basically just curious if it's possible to do so. I have Vista, which is really starting to grind on me sometimes, things get slow and I can't work out why and I think it's vista's fault and/or some of the crap on here though I've tried to reduce alot of it. However, I keep contemplating getting an old HD, sticking it in the laptop and installing XP on it(cos I kinda don't wanna ruin the HD in the laptop already/lose any of my stuff). Only, I just found out the external HD I have is 2.5" PATA, and I'm fairly sure the laptop one's SATA, so I wouldn't be able to just pop one in and do it like that. I might just invest in a SATA drive, and a SATA enclosure then swap them round like, but I was mainly wondering if it'd be possible to install windows to and then run off of an external hard drive(the PATA ones I have), or are the speeds just going to be too slow/any other issues? I'm sure it's not gonna be very doable, but I'd like some peace of mind as to knowing why it would be silly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 I have run OSX from an external hard drive, the main drawback was that external drives have built in sleep timers so they go to sleep after a few minutes with no load, although I got round that with a small program that stops drives going to sleep, its not exactly a great solution. I wouldn't really reccomend booting from an external hdd connected by a USB cable because it's not a very reliable means of connection for something in use so often. Also they're much more partial to data loss and crashing so you'd lose everything. Why not just back up onto an external HDD and perform a clean installation of Vista? Should clear up any issues you're having, maybe you've just installed too many things that are running at startup etc. - in fact you could consider simply tidying up your startup (start > run > msconfig > untick things you don't need in startup tab) and running programs like ccleaner and spybot, defragmenting etc. you might find it runs a lot better. Or get a new internal drive rather than external? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raining_again Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 Windows defender has a startup utility on Vista. Tools > Software Explorer > startup items Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gizmo Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 Could you not partition your internal and have an XP boot on there too? You wouldn't need to give too much space to it on the internal - you could simply save all your files onto the external. Just means the internal will have the OS, which is probably a better way of doing it. But yes, Vista is a pile of shit. I had to install Vista a few months ago after a harddrive failure, as I didn't have an XP disc and needed the computer back up and running. Been living with it for awhile and it's driving me crazy, but the other day I finally got my hands on an XP disc, so at some point next week Vista is gone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rummy Posted May 23, 2009 Author Share Posted May 23, 2009 It's not bloat on Vista causing problems, the problems have been ever since I had the laptop, and Vista, I can't think of it being much else's fault other than either Acer's(most of which crap I recently uninstalled) or Vista's. The only means I have of re-installing Vista...is to the state the laptop came in, with all their shit on it too. I don't have a disk either, I believe I made some 'Recovery Disks' with a couple of DVDs or something, but I also understand there is a recovery partition hidden on the hard drive. I've already uninstalled lots of stuff I don't need, and cut down my startup through msconfig, thing is still shit as a bugger. As for this sleep timer thing, do all drives just automatically have it? Cos the drive I have is an old PATA drive from an old laptop that broke that I stuck into a cheap enclosure I bought. In regards to Gizmo's post and partitioning, I have no idea about partitioning! Second to that, I believe the internal drive is already split into two partitions, and actually 3 if there's that hidden recovery partition I mentioned, I don't want to lose anything from those just in case I get left with a buggered laptop and no other OS to install. As for the saving files onto the external drive, it's small(like 40 or 60GB). What I want to be able to do is have a small drive with windows installed that I can boot from, then a bigger drive for all my files. The internal drive is 120GB, but SATA, which is why I can't just swap the drives and do it that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted May 24, 2009 Share Posted May 24, 2009 If you want to do it go ahead, just put the drive in, put Win XP in, startup pc, boot from CD and select the external hdd during installation options. If your PC came with recovery disks, they probably contain a clean copy of Vista - as long as you just use the disk to install windows normally rather than running any recovery software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rummy Posted May 26, 2009 Author Share Posted May 26, 2009 They didn't come with any, some Acer thing on it prompted me to make my own for ages until I actually did it, to shut it up and for contingency. I reckon I'll clean this HDD up a bit and then whack some XP onto it once I have a nice amount of space free, and make sure my comp can boot from the HDD too. Sounds doable enough, and really for now I don't think I'll get too dependant on XP but if I do then I'll look to a more permanent SATA solution or something. Cheers for the advice Shorty, and everyone else! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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