Tom said:
I want to mount my main hard drive in a portable external case so I can use
it when I travel on other's computers (I don't have a laptop). We all know
how much XP likes trying to boot when it finds a new motherboard
Is there a simple way to get around this without having to do a repair
installation each time I try to boot to it - including when I get home and
hook it back up to my main machine?
Thanks in advance.
Tom
Not only are you going to have to do a repair install, but you're probably
going to have to re-activate each time. If it's something you do every 6
months, it's not such a bad thing, but if this is something you plan on
doing often, you're going to be wasting a lot of time with each move. My
free time is worth a lot to me, and I'd rather have a second working OS than
deal with doing constant reinstalls every time I move from one computer to
another.
Not to mention the possibility of being fumble-fingered with that hard
drive. Drop it once, and that could be the end of it.
And with all those moves back and forth, and the repeated repairs of the OS,
sooner or later, something's going to go wrong, and you're going to find
that it's not booting or running correctly.
And when you're saying "on other's computers" do you mean you intend on
slapping this drive into other people's computers? Bad idea, IMHO. Chances
are you won't be able to boot from an external drive, so that means cracking
the case and installing the drive. All you need to do is forget to reset
jumpers when you're done, and you're going to have people calling you all
sorts of names when the computer doesn't boot and you're on your way home.
Not to mention that anything that goes wrong with that computer in the next
couple weeks, and it's going to be your fault, no matter what. They get an
email virus, they're going to say it came from your hard drive. And there's
also the possibility that you could accidentally do real damage. A static
shock, bump something out of place, change settings that cause problems.
And from the convenience standpoint, not only are you going to have to do a
repair install each time you move that drive, you're going to have to hunt
up drivers, etc.
While all this could theoretically be quite easy, if all goes well, it could
also go horribly wrong. Try this on a computer that's beginning to have
hardware errors, and your install is going to fail, or you're going to have
shut-downs in the midst of working, or you're going to spend hours
troubleshooting some odd incompatibilities. So instead of spending the time
using the computer, you're going to be spending time trying to get it to
run.
If you've got XP Pro and a reasonably fast connection at both ends, you
could do a remote desktop to your home machine. That way your drive isn't
being carted around, and you're not messing with someone else's computer,
and you have access to everything you need.
