Installing Linux on an external hard drive

[treacle130]

Hello i have a desktop pc running windows xp. It has a small hard drive 80GB so is slow & sluggish. What i am thinking of doing is to install Linux on an external hard drive so i can run it on my desktop. Does this sound like a reasonable prospect & are there any possible complications i could face? I am thinking of compatibility with linux & the new hard drives own software mainly. I also presume any version of linux will be suitable to install on this new drive? Thanks in advance.

[jpollard]

The big problem will be the BIOS.

Will it boot an external drive (usually a USB)?

If not, then the boot will still have to come from the internal drive (or internal CD/DVD)

[treacle130]

Well i have not yet bought a second drive i was just deciding if it was a practical option. But it will be a proper n
hard drive not just a usb stick.But thanks for your reply.

[jpollard]

External drives are almost always USB.

The exception are eSATA drives, which requires a controller to support eSATA...
This tends to make them more expensive (for the time being), though they are
faster than current USB speeds.

[theblackpig]

Originally Posted by treacle130

Well i have not yet bought a second drive i was just deciding if it was a practical option. But it will be a proper n
hard drive not just a usb stick.But thanks for your reply.

Very easy to install on external hard drive (I have done it) the problem is using it on a windows system
I'm trying to get a reply on the forums for that.

[GTAero]

I've done it on my laptop (I have an SSD, so I don't have room for a proper dual boot). It is simple to install - just have the drive plugged in when you start Anaconda and it should be detected just like any other hard drive.

In order to boot from the drive, you'll need to enter your system bios on boot and change the boot order so that USB hard drives are above internal hard drives. my preferred boot order is CD, USB Flash Drive, USB Hard Drive, Internal Hard Drive, as this lets you run install and system recovery CDs in the future.

Although I have noticed it to be quite a bit slower than my internal drive, installing on an external drive is a nice alternative as if you decide you don't want to boot into linux, you just have to unplug the drive (this can be nice if you like to tinker with alpha/rawhide releases, but also need your windows partition to get stuff done when those are less than stable or aren't booting).