[Ham-Computers] RE: Too stupid to own a PC

[Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal)]

Dave,

Successful booting from a USB hard drive depends on a few factors.  The two most important are (probably):

1.  System BIOS needs to support booting from USB.
2.  OS needs to support booting from USB without resetting the USB bus.

#1 is supported by most BIOS' today - you'll just need to know how to change the boot order in order to boot from USB.

#2 is a bit tricky.  Windows XP will not boot from a USB device because the USB driver resets the USB bus.  When this happens, the drive is temporarily disconnected and Windows can't continue loading.  However, I've heard that some Linux ports will support booting from USB drives.  You'll just need to install a version of Linux that supports this functionality.

Something else to keep in mind...hard drives connected via USB will be slower than if they are connected via (S)ATA.  Most USB 2.0 drive enclosures max out around 22MB/s due to USB overhead.  New 3.5" ATA and SATA drives will "burst" upwards of 100+ MB/s and have average sustained transfers of 40 to 50MB/s.

Going back to your system, are you sure you don't have a second SATA drive connector?  It's very rare to find a system with less than 2 SATA channels (if it has SATA).  Each channel can only connect to one device (no Master/Slave with SATA).  Check the motherboard again for a second SATA connector.  I've seen some where the two connectors not next to each other, but placed in different locations.

73,

  - nn6o


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 5:11 PM
Subject: [Ham-Computers] Too stupid to own a PC


    That has to be the best reply I ever received!

    My goal was to have a dual-boot PC with the resident Windows OS on 
the master drive, while using the second drive as a LINUX boot drive and 
as backup storage for the primary drive. Will the SATA enclosure through 
the USB port allow me to do this? I also have an IDE drive that I could 
have used an enclosure on and saved all this trouble. That's what I get 
for "assuming" the new drive would work!

tnx
Dave