So, it goes like this, i got up from my chair and i forgot the power cord was still plugged into my laptop. So this resuted in my computer being yanked right out of my hands.

So i took it into our local computer guy and he said that i fvcked up my hard drive beyond repair. This makes sense to me because everytime i try to boot it, it says "Cannot find operating System".

So my question is, instead buying a brand new Hard Drive for my computer could i just use my Portable Hard Drive for my main hard drive and then just buy a brand new Windows Vista for my computer?

My Only problem "I" think i will have with this is that it wont be fast enough because it really isnt made for this kind of stuff

thanks

I not 100% sure on this but I dont think that it will work. Because its looking for tne main boot order off of the comp. I would ask someone at a Computer shop

Well i was hoping that Mark would give me a reply because he seems to know chitload about computers

i just dont know if the PHD will have the RPM to keep up with the processes that the computer just runs normally.

And im sure i could set it up somehow to where the computer recognizes it as my main hard drive

do this-

plug the external hard drive to your system, then turn the laptop on.

boot into bios by holding or rapdily pressing DEL, F2,F10,F11 or F12. It's one of those keys.

once in the bios, look for boot priority in there.

when you find it, select the 1st boot device and see what options you have to choose from.

you will be attempting to force USB HDD or HDD as 1st boot device.

if you only have HDD as a choice, then you will choose that, then you will have to into a

hard disk boot order screen somewhere in that area and change it so the external usb drive boots first in this menu.

if you do not have windows on that drive yet, you WILL NEED to set xdrom to 1st boot device then everythng i just said as 2nd boot device.

do this-

plug the external hard drive to your system, then turn the laptop on.

boot into bios by holding or rapdily pressing DEL, F2,F10,F11 or F12. It's one of those keys.

once in the bios, look for boot priority in there.

when you find it, select the 1st boot device and see what options you have to choose from.

you will be attempting to force USB HDD or HDD as 1st boot device.

if you only have HDD as a choice, then you will choose that, then you will have to into a

hard disk boot order screen somewhere in that area and change it so the external usb drive boots first in this menu.

if you do not have windows on that drive yet, you WILL NEED to set xdrom to 1st boot device then everythng i just said as 2nd boot device.

Holy Crap

Ok, so after i do that it will automatically boot my USB drive as its first boot device?

And if i install Vista on my PHD it will be ok?

Is the drive fast enough though? Thats what im still wondering

There's only one way to find out I guess. Lol

I had that message pop up on my laptop a few weeks ago. You can see the thread I made about it on here. Jumping to the end- I ended up buying a new Dell desktop.

yes it will work.

I work on pcs, video game systems, etc... on my spare time.

In terms of speed, it will have Lag, not slower, just a lag.

Kinda like turbo but more exaggerated. It will always start to access things slow but will gradually get up to speed.

I cant tell u what to expect, you have to do it and see for yourself. I can only show you the door, you must be willing to walk through it.

When you get that error, the drive may not actually be dead but since a pc shop said it was, i can only assume they are right.

Usually though, when you receive one of these 2 errors-

SYSTEM DISK ERROR

Replace disk, etc....

or

OS not found

That's a sign that it physically cannot see the hard drive. that either means it's not getting a signal or it has no partition or is not formatted.

I had that message pop up on my laptop a few weeks ago. You can see the thread I made about it on here. Jumping to the end- I ended up buying a new Dell desktop.

Thats not what i wanted to hear. lol.

yes it will work.

I work on pcs, video game systems, etc... on my spare time.

In terms of speed, it will have Lag, not slower, just a lag.

Kinda like turbo but more exaggerated. It will always start to access things slow but will gradually get up to speed.

I cant tell u what to expect, you have to do it and see for yourself. I can only show you the door, you must be willing to walk through it.

When you get that error, the drive may not actually be dead but since a pc shop said it was, i can only assume they are right.

Usually though, when you receive one of these 2 errors-

SYSTEM DISK ERROR

Replace disk, etc....

or

OS not found

That's a sign that it physically cannot see the hard drive. that either means it's not getting a signal or it has no partition or is not formatted.

Alright well yeah basically my hard drive is messed up beyond repair and im just gonna have to try this. God Dammit

Well hopefully it works. I hadn't even though of using an external hard drive. But at that point it seemed like the easiest thing to do was replace my laptop. It was old anyways and I had the funds (federal tax refund).

Yupp. My comp. showed the infamous "cannot find OS" and it ended up that my hard drive was just dead. Whooo... not.

I ended up getting a mac.

1) no more worrying about the power cord being yanked because of the Magsafe power adapter whoo

2) SSD (solid state drive)... no more moving parts in my hard drive.

This way my laptop will actually last me. Costs more initially, but this combined with AppleCare will just take care of so much in the long run.

Alright. i guess ill have to try it. IDK when its gonna happen but ill try to remember to let you guys know how it went because this is gonna be an experiment for me.

If i was to download the windows vista software off of another computer how would i go about install vista onto the portable hard drive to where it will work?