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Switching hard drive with Linux

post #1 of 9
8/20/06 at 4:26pm
Thread Starter 
Hey guys, I know that this question has probably been asked before so if it has then sorry...

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 and I just wanted to know if it's possible to have 2 seperate hard drives. What I mean is just use my stock one for windows and when I wanted to use linux i could just swap that hard drive for another notebook hard drive that already has linux on it. And when I wanted to switch operating systems I could just swap the hard drives.

I thought that this would be a good idea because with notebooks the hard drive is easily to remove them, and also because I do not want to partition my windows hard drive.

Sorry for making this harder then it sounds, I'm not really "forum articulate"

thanks in advance
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post #2 of 9
8/20/06 at 4:44pm
Yep, all you would do is install windows like normal with one HD in the laptop, and Linux like normal with the other HD in the laptop.

Seablade
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post #3 of 9
8/20/06 at 4:56pm
Thread Starter 
Alright thanks!
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post #4 of 9
8/20/06 at 8:24pm
Thread Starter 
I was also thinking that an external hard drive might work, the only issue that scares me is that the connection would be too slow and Linux would start to lagg and also the fact that Linux might not even regonize the external hard drive.
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post #5 of 9
8/20/06 at 9:01pm
External drive is certainly possible, though it adds other kinks into things and I cant help you but so much with it. First and foremost though your BIOS needs to be able to boot to an external drive.

Seablade
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post #6 of 9
10/11/06 at 7:44pm

Use Linux if BIOS recognizes an External HD connected via USB or FireWire port

From what I have learnt LINUX would probably be the 1st to recognize an OS (& easiest to load on an external HD) as many tutorials exist for it. Forgot ave MB/s on my USB ext enclosure bench marks, but guessing Int mid 30, Ext low 20 7200, so response would be slower, but you would still be migrating to open Source, eventually M$ free! IMHO; M$ may be harder, depends on your computer skills.

wp..98 btw, May need to reset BIOS defaults before boot option is seen in BIOS

Your 1st option is very easy, I swap HD in & out all the time, does help to have other HD already in a caddy though. Depending on amount of movement you do & frequency of swapping, I just restrain caddy, the HD is not secured to caddy!
Quote:
Originally Posted by wparker0198
Snpd/Edtd thinking that an external hard drive might work, connection would be slow, Linux would lag.
Linux might not even recognize the external hard drive.
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post #7 of 9
10/13/06 at 4:15pm
I would never recommend runnind an operating system off an external drive. It's certainly possible, but it's not always easy to configure (usu. either it'll be a piece of cake and you'll be up and running pretty quickly, or it'll be a tremendous headache), and it is very slow, both in terms of boot times and in response time.
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post #8 of 9
10/19/06 at 5:27am
A nice thing about Linux is that you CAN run it off USB or firewire, unlike Windows. If you're seriously thinking of doing this, you might want to investigate firewire enclosures since firewire can give you better consistent throughput.
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post #9 of 9
10/24/06 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by attilathepun
I would never recommend runnind an operating system off an external drive. It's certainly possible, but it's not always easy to configure (usu. either it'll be a piece of cake and you'll be up and running pretty quickly, or it'll be a tremendous headache), and it is very slow, both in terms of boot times and in response time.

This really just isn't true. It's so easy to install linux to an external HDD, and it runs beautifully.

Depending on what you are looking to do with your Linux install, the best option for what the OP is looking to do would be a good large USB memory stick. Put an OS like Puppy Linux or DamnSmallLinux on it, and use the -toram option at boot... this loads the entire OS into RAM, and you will *never* find a faster OS solution than this. Plus, you still will have access to everything on your Windows HDD. I do this when I have to borrow my wife's computer for one reason or another... load Puppy into RAM, and then access her mp3's. This works great for DVD watching as well.

-olly
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