[Kylethornock]

Hello all thanks for the help. Well i recently had my old internal drive go out on me. I am going to be buying a new computer in the next month or so so i didnt wanna buy another internal as i was going to be getting one with the computer, so i bought a 320gig external usb. My brother told me i could use the usb one as a main boot drive until i get my new computer. My question is how do i do that? im not the greatest with computers but i have basic knowledge as i grew up on them. the salesman said i would have to go into the bios to set it as the main drive so i could install windows on it.

Oh and i have windows xp home edition (dont know if that makes much of a difference)

Thanks,
Kyle

[Advertisements]

Hello all thanks for the help. Well i recently had my old internal drive go out on me. I am going to be buying a new computer in the next month or so so i didnt wanna buy another internal as i was going to be getting one with the computer, so i bought a 320gig external usb. My brother told me i could use the usb one as a main boot drive until i get my new computer. My question is how do i do that? im not the greatest with computers but i have basic knowledge as i grew up on them. the salesman said i would have to go into the bios to set it as the main drive so i could install windows on it.

Oh and i have windows xp home edition (dont know if that makes much of a difference)

Thanks,
Kyle

If your bios supports usb booting or usb devices then it SHOULD work.

Read this..

http://techrepublic....ssageID=2117304


if it still does not work and you know your Motherboard supports USB devices / USB Booting then you will need to get the external HD bootable first if it is not currently. Some drives / motherboards may do this and you will have to get the Operating system installed on the device some other way first.

good luck hope it is compatible with your pc.

[jrm20]

Hello all thanks for the help. Well i recently had my old internal drive go out on me. I am going to be buying a new computer in the next month or so so i didnt wanna buy another internal as i was going to be getting one with the computer, so i bought a 320gig external usb. My brother told me i could use the usb one as a main boot drive until i get my new computer. My question is how do i do that? im not the greatest with computers but i have basic knowledge as i grew up on them. the salesman said i would have to go into the bios to set it as the main drive so i could install windows on it.

Oh and i have windows xp home edition (dont know if that makes much of a difference)

Thanks,
Kyle

If your bios supports usb booting or usb devices then it SHOULD work.

Read this..

http://techrepublic....ssageID=2117304


if it still does not work and you know your Motherboard supports USB devices / USB Booting then you will need to get the external HD bootable first if it is not currently. Some drives / motherboards may do this and you will have to get the Operating system installed on the device some other way first.

good luck hope it is compatible with your pc.

[123Runner]

Welcome to geeks to go.

What is the make and model number of the computer?
With that we can look for a manual and get more info.

You could also install the external drive (need to remove the enclosure) as a internal. Format and install XP.
This is assuming the external you bought is an ide drive.

[Kylethornock]

well i loaded my windows disk and got to setup it did show the external drive as partition1 mybooks so i hit enter to install it and i get this message (shortened down)
Your computer cannot gain access to the disk containing the free space or partition you chose windows is unable to install onto this disk. Lack of acces does not nexessarily indicate an error in the disk. Then it gives some examples.
is seeing it on the list mean that it should work? im not good with computers but would deleteing the partition help at all (i didnt do it yet)
the computer is an older computer that my brother built for me. i dont know model numbers all i know is it is a abit motherboard, radeon 9500 pro video card and a amd 2600 plus processor. ill go see if i can find model numbers for the motherboard.

[Kylethornock]

Oh and also i looked in the bios boot sequence i didnt see removable drive but there was some usb devices under it. which is the one i need?

[Kylethornock]

only numbers i seen that seemed like a model number was kd7a-c3k004676

[Kylethornock]

according to google kd7a-c3k004676 isnt the model number just kd7a is i guess.

[Kylethornock]

sorry about the like 6 posts.... here is the specs i found from geeks.com sales
This Abit KD7A Socket A Motherboard features the VIA KT400A and VT8235 chipsets, supports 200/266/333 MHz Front Side Bus, and three DIMM slots supporting up to a maximum of 3 GB DDR RAM. This ATX motherboard has built-in 6-channel AC'97 audio CODEC, 10/100 Fast Ethernet controller as well as IDE and floppy controllers. It also supports AMD-K7 Athlon/Athlon XP/Barton Socket A processors with 200/266/333 MHz FSBs. Build your system with this powerful Abit KD7A Socket A Motherboard!

Features/Specifications:
Abit KD7A VIA KT400A Socket A Motherboard


General Features:
VIA KT400A and VT8235 chipset
Socket A
ATX form factor
200/266/333 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB)
Supports 2 DIMM Un-buffered DDR 333/400 (2 GB max)
Supports 3 DIMM Un-buffered DDR 200/266 (3 GB max)
Two (2) UDMA/33/66/100/133 IDE controllers
One (1) floppy disk controller
24-bit S/PDIF out
6-channel integrated AC'97 audio CODEC
Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet controller


Expansion Slots:
One (1) AGP slot
Five (5) PCI slots
Three (3) 184-pin DIMM slots


I/O Ports:
Two (2) PS/2 ports
One (1) 9-pin standard serial port
One (1) 25-pin standard parallel port
One (1) S/SPDIF output
Six (5) USB ports (four on back and two via header)
One (1) RJ-45 standard Ethernet jack
Rear-Left/Rear-Right, Center/Subwoofer jacks
Mic-in, line-in, Front-Left/Front-Right jacks


BIOS Features:
Award BIOS
Plug and Play
Supports ACPI


Hardware Monitor Function:
CPU/system fan speed
System voltage
CPU temperature


Supported Processors:
AMD-K7 Athlon/Athlon XP/Barton Socket A processors w/200/266/333 MHz FSB


Regulatory Approvals:
FCC
CE


Package Includes:
Abit KD7A VIA KT400A Socket A Motherboard only

Additional Information:

Product Requirements
ATX case
ATX power supply
Supported processor
Supported RAM
Rest of system

[123Runner]

According to the manual, it looks like you have to enter the sub menus in the bios. If the drive is shown there, it would probably be bootable.

[attachment=26032:KD7a_manual.jpg]

[Kylethornock]

I hit enter on hard disk boot priority and only option is 1.Add in removable cards
is that what i am looking for? and if it isnt im assuming either my MB or external isnt bootable so im wondering if my western digital my book 320gb im reading model wd3200h1u-oo or wdh1u3200n if it is an IDE hard drive if i could take it out of its enclosure and how i would go about it

Thanks

[Kylethornock]

well i got it to install format drive and copy the windows files, then it restarts to start the install process and i past verifying dmi pool data then it bring up a blue screen error. My brother told me you guys would need these numbers from the error 0x0000007b (0xf894e528, 0xc00000,0x0000000,0x00000000) dunno it that helps or not.

[Kylethornock]

I was just wondering if it was possible to copy and paste windows so it would work? like from this computer onto the external