[justinhess]

hello,i recently got a new external harddrive for my laptop,and a new winxp disc to install on it.long story short,it starts to install xp but then gets to the end screen asking for partition space to install it on.the message says

your comps startup program cannot gain access to the disck containing the partition or free space you chose.setup cannot install winxp on this hard disck..

it then goes on about other things...concerning lack of access odesnt mean error problems necessarily.exampe disck attatch to a scs1 adapter that wasnt installed by comp ..

i see an option to work with this 'scs1' by pressing f6 during the setup but nothing happens when i press f6?

any help on how to fix this so my computer will ...plug in ? and access my external hard drive to install winxp on ?thanks

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It is not possible to install Windows XP onto an external hard drive. It must be on an internal hard drive.

[Neil Jones]

It is not possible to install Windows XP onto an external hard drive. It must be on an internal hard drive.

[justinhess]

shoot...why not?
thanks for the response though
what operating system would load onto an external harddrive?
what would u suggest for an internal hard drive for my averatec laptop?
guess ill have to sell this one on ebay!
thanks again

[Ztruker]

It is possible to install XP on a USB attached external hard drive, it just takes "some work" on your part

Tutorial here:

http://www.ngine.de/...jsp?pageid=4176

[justinhess]

appreciate it,but all that is beyond me.plus it says u need windows existing to do it,i dont have that.just a new winxp disc.thanks again though

[123Runner]

Am I missing something here? Why not put the XP you bought on the laptop HD?

[Damien Kane]

Why do you need it external? If it's just for simple things, maybe think about an OS boot like Ubuntu. You throw it in the CD/DVD drive, reboot and it'll boot automatically.

I'm off track - anyhow, I assume your external is a 2.5 HDD - put it in the laptop and install windows. Take out the HDD and put it back on your external, configure your BIOS to boot from the external (USB, I assume). Dunno if it'll work though.

[annabackwards]

You can install any distribution of Linux on an external hard drive, just make sure you choose the right partition.