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#1
13th Feb 2009, 10:48
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I have recently obtained a laptop computer which is slightly damaged, but I possible as a reserve. It does not have a hard drive, in fact the connections would appear to be slightly damaged. Without a fitted har drive, would it work if I connected an external hard drive to one of the USB ports; and how would I gho about loading Windows on to this external unit please.
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#2
13th Feb 2009, 14:28
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So will an external hard drive operate, if the on board laptop hard drive is removed ???
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#3
13th Feb 2009, 16:12
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Think the only way to boot from an external drive is by eSATA connections,
the usb drives are loaded after the windows boot drives are loaded so on start up it wont see the drive,and so wont boot I maybe wrong Im sure others will inform you better
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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. A computer once beat me at chess But it was no match for me at kick boxing.
 My System: redden137
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#4
13th Feb 2009, 16:16
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surely if the pins are bent, u can bend them back to place with a pair of fine of needle nose pliers and a bit of patience.
otherwise, i suppose it would work if you have a option in your BIOS that allows you to set a USB hard drive or storage device as your primary boot device. however, im not sure if it windows installation will allow you to install to a external device, but if you plug it in, then try your windows installation disc, to see if you get the opition to install to it. the removal of the on board hard drive is not so important, its what the bios is set to that makes the difference as a different point, you can install a version of linux onto a memory stick, or a hard drive, so it runs entirely of there. this cant be done with windows as far as i know tho. MCTW |
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#5
13th Feb 2009, 18:11
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According to M$ it cant be done, but this guy says different
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The Laptop would have to support booting from USB though .... many older ones wont. My System: Home Build
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