Booting from an External Hard Drive LaCie says its possible

[Delafoo]

Many posts on the net insist that it is impossible to boot from an
external hard drive (for USB and Firewire).

However, I have a 20GB internal drive and need to upgrade. While
researching, I found LaCie's d2 external SATA hard drive which boasts
speeds faster than most internal drives, and many times faster than USB
or Firewire. LaCie's product manual
(http://www.lacie.com/download/manuals/d2_hd_sata_en.pdf ) claims that
you can indeed boot from this external disk, and its onlly a couple
more dollars than a compably priced external drive.

I'll be getting the new d2 drive this week and trying it out, and
posting my experience!

~BB

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Delafoo" <[email protected]>

| Many posts on the net insist that it is impossible to boot from an
| external hard drive (for USB and Firewire).
|
| However, I have a 20GB internal drive and need to upgrade. While
| researching, I found LaCie's d2 external SATA hard drive which boasts
| speeds faster than most internal drives, and many times faster than USB
| or Firewire. LaCie's product manual
| (http://www.lacie.com/download/manuals/d2_hd_sata_en.pdf ) claims that
| you can indeed boot from this external disk, and its onlly a couple
| more dollars than a compably priced external drive.
|
| I'll be getting the new d2 drive this week and trying it out, and
| posting my experience!
|
| ~BB

Well the distiction is that it is SATA which is normally an internal drive. However, in
your case, the SATA bus is taken from the inside to an external drive connection. Therefore
it may be physically outside, but it is really an internal tehnology like SCSI.

 

[Guest]

I saw an earlier post about an eSATA on an ASUS MB.

Was actually external port on MB.
It lacked PS though.
Can search for it you like.

 

[Guest]

I found the OP I mentioned.

titled eSATA dated 12/03
Windows XP hardware newsgrou
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...osoft.public.windowsxp.hardware&lang=en&cr=US

 

[Anna]

| Many posts on the net insist that it is impossible to boot from an
| external hard drive (for USB and Firewire).
|
| However, I have a 20GB internal drive and need to upgrade. While
| researching, I found LaCie's d2 external SATA hard drive which boasts
| speeds faster than most internal drives, and many times faster than USB
| or Firewire. LaCie's product manual
| (http://www.lacie.com/download/manuals/d2_hd_sata_en.pdf ) claims that
| you can indeed boot from this external disk, and its onlly a couple
| more dollars than a compably priced external drive.
|
| I'll be getting the new d2 drive this week and trying it out, and
| posting my experience!
|
| ~BB

Well the distiction is that it is SATA which is normally an internal
drive. However, in
your case, the SATA bus is taken from the inside to an external drive
connection. Therefore
it may be physically outside, but it is really an internal tehnology like
SCSI.

I saw an earlier post about an eSATA on an ASUS MB.

Was actually external port on MB.
It lacked PS though.
Can search for it you like.

Delafoo:
Dixonian69 is apparently referring to my recent post to the
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware newsgroup re the eSATA (external) port
that's included on some of the newer ASUS motherboards. You might want to
peruse that thread since much of the information directly bears on your area
of interest. The subject of the posts is Re: eSATA support

First of all, it *is* true that in the XP OS environment, a USB/Firewire
external hard drive containing that OS is *not* bootable. At least we've
never been able to achieve that capability nor are we aware that others
have. And that's one of the great advantages of equipping your system with
an external SATA HD (a standard, "normal" SATA HD). In so doing, as David
points out, the system treats the SATA drive as an *internal* HD (even
though it resides outside the computer's case) with all the advantages
inherent in that situation. And one of those advantages is that the XP OS
can be installed on that "external" SATA drive - either directly or through
the cloning process of a disk imaging program, e.g., Symantec's Norton
Ghost, and the drive will be bootable. Another advantage is the superior
performance (data transfer speed) of a SATA drive over a USB/Firewire
external HD.

Truth to tell, you don't even need an external enclosure to house the SATA
HD to achieve the capability we speak of. There's no reason why you couldn't
plop the drive in a cigar box or even use a bare drive to connect to an
available SATA signal/data connector on your motherboard. And no external
power supply is needed by the drive. You can use your computer's PS to
supply power to the drive. Another substantial advantage of an external SATA
HD.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Sorry I didn't give credit for authoring the very informative and well
written response to the aforementioned OP.

Thank You!!

 

[Delafoo]

Thanks ANNA, and Everyone for your posts, I really appreciate them...
I've gotten the drives today and am going to try them out... I'm
expecting them to boot and hoping they will but have been told varying
things from different technical supports. A support tech from Casper
XP (a HD cloning program) says that regardless of the type of external
drive, it wouldn't boot. A Dell support tech says it depends on my
BIOS and the age of my motherboard as some BIOS' apparantly now have
the ability to select a USB device? That's what she told me anyway....
I'll be installing them tonight and will post my results as well as my
BIOS/motherboard info.

Thanks for you replies!

~BB

 

[Anna]

Thanks ANNA, and Everyone for your posts, I really appreciate them...
I've gotten the drives today and am going to try them out... I'm
expecting them to boot and hoping they will but have been told varying
things from different technical supports. A support tech from Casper
XP (a HD cloning program) says that regardless of the type of external
drive, it wouldn't boot. A Dell support tech says it depends on my
BIOS and the age of my motherboard as some BIOS' apparantly now have
the ability to select a USB device? That's what she told me anyway....
I'll be installing them tonight and will post my results as well as my
BIOS/motherboard info.

Thanks for you replies!

~BB

Delafoo:
The LaCie device you will soon be using is, in effect, a housing or
receptacle for your SATA hard drive. The LaCie device includes a built-in
power supply. You will be connecting that device, i.e., your SATA drive, to
an available SATA connector on your motherboard. So even though that SATA
hard drive will be physically outside your computer case, the system will
treat it as an *internal* hard drive, in the identical way it would treat
any internal hard drive. As such, assuming there's a valid XP operating
system that has been installed on that SATA drive (either directly installed
or cloned from your internal working hard drive), the drive will be
bootable.

I'm reasonably certain the information you received from the Casper & Dell
representatives was based on their (mis)understanding that they were dealing
with a USB external hard drive. Your LaCie device is *not* a USB (or
Firewire) apparatus. As I stated above, it is merely a container for your
SATA hard drive. So assuming your motherboard's BIOS is properly set to boot
from the motherboard's SATA connector to which you connected your "external"
SATA drive, you should have no problem booting to it.
Anna

 

[Delafoo]

It does work. LaCie included a Disk to select the drive upon boot up
and then install Windows, but I just cloned my 20GB hard drive with
Casper XP, then restarted and in the BIOS, since there is no 'select
external drive' option, I selected the Hard Disk Drive Sequence above
the Select boot sequence, and chose the LaCie drive as number 1. This
booted from the LaCie, and I reformatted the internal drive to be sure.


I did note that my pc switched the drive letters, where my internal was
C: and the external was L:, and now they're vice versa.

It runs about as fast as it did, now with much more room!

~BB