Rebooting from external hard drive. Is it possible.

[Bazzar]

My laptop, slow and clogged up and i want to wipe and reinstall the original programs.

My question is, the internal DVD is rooted and I use an external one. So if I put my reboot discs into the external drive can I reinstall the discs through it?

I was thinking the external DVDs program will be wiped when the hard drive is reformatted and the external one will be useless.

Can it be done?

 

[The Passenger]

yep. it's not hard but does require some sort of computing knowledge

http://www.intowindows.com/bootable-usb/

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7vista-from-usb-drive-detailed-100-working-guide/

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-c...-usb-flash-drive-using-windows-7-dvdusb-tool/

reformatting a hard drive usually gives it a nice kick start. i have formatted a couple of computers in the last few months and now they are running like a dream.

obviously back up all your data before formatting

essentially what those guides are doing is making a disk image onto usb. just make sure when you create a partition you select the right disk. it can be easy enough to go onto the wrong disk, but if you're wiping you're hard drive then it doesn't really matter anyway as long as everything is backed up

when you reboot your computer you can see the boot order usually by pressing f8 (or maybe f12... i think).... or you can go into the bios (usually f2). basically the boot order is the order of devices the computer is looking for to boot up and if device 1 isn't present it moves to device 2 and so on until it finds an operating systom - so in a normal working computer HDD/SDD will be number 1, to boot from usb you need to change the boot order so that usb is number 1, or if you want to boot from cd/dvd (you can't, but others might) you would change it so that cd/dvd is the number 1 device

 

[Bazzar]

Thanks for that. I have done it in the past using my CDs that came with the computer, but i was worried they wouldnt work in an external drive. So should i transfer the CD data to a USB and just use that?

 

[dav3]

Thanks for that. I have done it in the past using my CDs that came with the computer, but i was worried they wouldnt work in an external drive. So should i transfer the CD data to a USB and just use that?

Any half recent laptop should have a "boot from external/USB" option that should let you boot from your external drive, but you may have to enable it in BIOS and change the boot order around a bit. If you tell us what type of laptop you have we might be able to point you in the right direction.

 

[Bazzar]

Any half recent laptop should have a "boot from external/USB" option that should let you boot from your external drive, but you may have to enable it in BIOS and change the boot order around a bit. If you tell us what type of laptop you have we might be able to point you in the right direction.

acer aspire 5720z

 

[The Passenger]

Thanks for that. I have done it in the past using my CDs that came with the computer, but i was worried they wouldnt work in an external drive. So should i transfer the CD data to a USB and just use that?

that may or may not work, i'm not sure off the top of my head. you need to create a disk image onto your a usb stick.

i would recommend buying a 2 or 4gb usb stick ($10 or so) and using it solely for the purpose of making a disk image. i'm not sure if using your external hdd, which is holding all your other data, for the purpose of a disk image could cause unexpected behaviour.

 

[Bazzar]

that may or may not work, i'm not sure off the top of my head. you need to create a disk image onto your a usb stick.

i would recommend buying a 2 or 4gb usb stick ($10 or so) and using it solely for the purpose of making a disk image. i'm not sure if using your external hdd, which is holding all your other data, for the purpose of a disk image could cause unexpected behaviour.

This is what i was worried about. Thanks for you help, i will go the USB way.

 

[wilson0416]

Why boot from external hard disk?