Use external HD as the only one?

[fallguy]

Can I use an external HD, as the active C: drive, and have it act as just a regular HD? Looked around, didnt see an answer.

I would think so, but not sure if it would find it in the bios.

[Ice Czar]

if the BIOS supports booting to a USB\Firewire device
or natively its SCSI or eSATA (http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/esata.htm)

and there are huge performance advantages to either SCSI or eSATA over USB or firewire in most implementations
see the last post of the Advanced HDD Issues Sticky Thread ;)

[fallguy]

Im not really worried about performance. Its for my daughters Biostar 200V SFF case. Its sitting right next to me, and the current HD (80gig WD SE) is driving me crazy. Its so loud. I never noticed it when I had it in my main machine, but right now its ear level and loud.

So I want to get an external HD, which I hear are much quieter. Just didnt want to buy one and not be able to install Windows on it. Ill look into the bios and read the manual to see if it can boot to usb/firewire. Thanks for the help.

[Ice Czar]

some of the newer mobos\BIOS support that, with it you can ditch the floppy disk and use a USB flash pen drive instead
highly variable though

[Zepher]

Originally posted by fallguy
Im not really worried about performance. Its for my daughters Biostar 200V SFF case. Its sitting right next to me, and the current HD (80gig WD SE) is driving me crazy. Its so loud. I never noticed it when I had it in my main machine, but right now its ear level and loud.

So I want to get an external HD, which I hear are much quieter. Just didnt want to buy one and not be able to install Windows on it. Ill look into the bios and read the manual to see if it can boot to usb/firewire. Thanks for the help.

External hard drive is the same drive as in the machine, except in an external enclosure.
Just remove the 80gig drive and put a new one in there, which should be nice and quiet.

[fallguy]

Well, it seems the mobo can boot from USB/Firewire. Its one of the options to pick as first boot device. So Ill be getting one pretty soon, if I cant slow down the spin of my current HD.

[Ub312g0d654]

If youre only concern is noise level I would recommend a seagate barrucada V. I have 2 80gig's in raid 0 and I cant hear them over any fans, even with the fans off they are virtually silent.

[fallguy]

Well, I couldnt hear this 80gig WD SE either, when it was in my main PC. But now its in a SFF case, about 4 feet from me, and level with my ear. Its got a pretty loud whine to it, that I never heard before when it was in my box, on the floor. It would also keep the SFF a tad cooler too, which would be a plus.