Windows Only system possible?

[peanutismint]

I've been trying (without success) to get Windows XP to install onto an external hard drive through my Macbook. It's possible, apparently, but I've had no such luck.

Now I'm considering the extreme... Is it possible to replace my Macbook's hard drive (running OS X) with another one, install Windows XP on it as the sole OS, and then choose which to boot to by which hard drive is present in the machine?

Call me crazy, but I use a lot of Windows-only music software, and don't like the idea of giving up drive space to BootCamp, or suffering performance and other issues by emulating under a VM such as Parallels...

Any suggestions?!

 

[Richdmoore]

Why don't you want to dual boot? I have been doing some research and 320 gigs is the max size you can buy now, but a 500 gig drive that will fit in the macbook is going to be released by the first half of 2008. No price on the 500 gig drive yet, the 320 gig sells for under $200. I would think either drive option would allow you to have enough room for both systems.

Another post on these forums showed a product that replaced the internal superdrive with another hard drive, it includes a kit to make the internal drive an external drive. That may be another option, but I would guess way more expensive.
Here's the link to that product:
http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

 

[riscy]

Having bought a Mac, it seems a bit odd to then want to turn it into a Windows machine - my suggestion would be to just buy a PC laptop for a few hundred dollars and give the Mac to someone who will love it and give it a good home

 

[peanutismint]

Hahah, don't shun me, Mac Fanboy! Nah I'm as big a fan of Apple as the next guy, but if you read what I wrote, for my work I use a lot of Windows-only music software which I'd rather have on an entirely different drive to my Mac stuff. Then I can use OS X as usual for the majority of the time, but on the odd occasion I need to load up Windows, I can just swap the drives over (or just connect the USB external, as was my original hope) and Windows and all my software will run straight off the second drive. That was my plan, anyway....

I've just swapped my stock 120GB HDD for a 250GB one, and bought an external enclosure to house the old 120GB for this very purpose, so don't really want to get yet another HDD. I suppose 250GB is plenty to hold both Mac and Windows, I just liked having lots of free space for once! Plus, I DJ from my Macbook, and it runs a lot smoother having all the free disk space now... still, I suppose it'll fill up quick enough... sigh, maybe I will bite the bullet and run BootCamp again... I just hate the idea of having 'plenty of space' but not being able to use it as I've allocated it to Windows stuff..... Especially when there's a perfectly good 120GB drive I could be using!

 

[riscy]

If you read some of my posts here, I am not really a Mac fanboy.

In your original post you say : "Is it possible to replace my Macbook's hard drive (running OS X) with another one, install Windows XP on it as the sole OS, and then choose which to boot to by which hard drive is present in the machine?"

"Sole OS"?? Well, that is a Windoze machine hence my comment. If you run Leopard and BootCamp, then you have a dual boot option [Triple if you go for Linux]

I think that with drives of that size, BootCamp would be ideal as you boot into either Windows or Mac as you need, for your DJ stuff, you have loads of space on a separate partition.

 

[peanutismint]

Hahah okay, sorry for labelling you incorrectly!

Yeah, I at no point planned to switch primarily to Windows - why would i?! I 'switched' about a year ago and haven't looked back since! Unfortunately, most of my favourite software developers don't seem to share my appreciation of Mac, so I think you may be right, BootCamp may be the way to go....

I don't suppose you know....if I installed OS X or Windows on my Mac's hard drive and then put it in an external enclosure, would it still be able to run from the enclosure? Or is that impossible?

 

[ReanimationLP]

I dont recommend it.

Why?

Chances are, the constant changing will wear out the SATA connectors on the mainboard.

SATA connectors are rather fragile.

On another note, try a 2.5" FW400 drive instead.

 

[peanutismint]

Hmmm okay... I don't have a FW enclosure, at least not for 2.5" drives... I could try my 3.5" one? But even if it were to work, I don't think I'd want to use it as it's a 300GB drive and is full of stuff! But I'll see if I can move some data around and give it a go.