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External drive only?

P

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Original poster
Jan 6, 2004
19,242
12
Hello again everyone,

well my laptop hard drive is on the vere of dying, and im out of warranty
i have a few options
1. have apple install a new hard drive and pay huge amounts of money for it
2. install a new hard drive of my own(too time consuming)
3. use an external as my boot drive

i just want to be sure that i can use an external as my main boot drive through Firewire with no problems. I can deal with my laptop becoming a desktop until i can get a drive to put in there later on during the summer.

is there any problem using a Firewire external drive as your main/only drive?

thanks again everyone for your help
 
virividox said:
other than the fact your laptop is no longer as portable as i twas before i dont see any problem with that become the boot drive. but i would replace the internal one asap i think you will find using an external as a boot drive very inconvenient
Click to expand...

well i know its going to be inconvenient, and my laptop will now be a desktop until i can get a drive in there, probably mid-way through the semester or perhaps as late as the summer i will get a drive in there, but with time being a constraint and school issues pending, i figure i can use an external for now, plus then i will have that drive for backups once i get the new drive in the powerbook

i just wanted to be sure that OS X will have no problems being booted from the external
 
People boot off of Firewire drives all of the time, I don't see any problem at all. In fact, if you get a desktop external drive, they are often FASTER than the drive you had before, so you could see a performance increase.
 
yippy said:
People boot off of Firewire drives all of the time, I don't see any problem at all. In fact, if you get a desktop external drive, they are often FASTER than the drive you had before, so you could see a performance increase.
Click to expand...

thank you very much for that reassurance, i just want to be sure that this will work with out a problem, i can live with the lack or portability for a few months no problem, sounds like i just need to find a drive for myself now
 
build one urself or get one from la cie or wiebetech

i know some ppl use their ipod to boot off, but then it really wasnt designed to do that so i wouldnt suggest that unless for a temp fix until you get a replacement

anyway what makes you think your laptop hard drive is dying
 
virividox said:
build one urself or get one from la cie or wiebetech

i know some ppl use their ipod to boot off, but then it really wasnt designed to do that so i wouldnt suggest that unless for a temp fix until you get a replacement

anyway what makes you think your laptop hard drive is dying
Click to expand...

ok well i got a drive, no problems there, just need to know how to make it my boot drive

the reasons i think the drive are dead can be found in these two threads

link

link

basically my powerbooks is having a hell of a time trying to read and write from the drive, its not totally dead and gone just yet, but i can tell that its on the vere of dying, it was having trouble playing a song in iTunes, it would take a while for it to read the info from the disk, and if i started up too many programs it would just stall out on me, nothing could be done with it
 
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