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-   -   how to make external hard drive to work as internal hard drive (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/how-to-make-external-hard-drive-to-work-as-internal-hard-drive-877957/)

chaitanyajun12 04-30-2011 01:01 AM

how to make external hard drive to work as internal hard drive
 
hi all,

Recently i bought an external HDD, and unfortunately my internal HDD is not working.

Instead of buying new internal HDD, can i make external HDD work as internal HDD.

Reply would of great help to me.

regards,
Chaitanya.

syg00 04-30-2011 01:59 AM

What are you asking ?.
If you can remove the drive, simply swap them over.
If you want to keep using the external as an external, your BIOS must be capable of booting from it. And it will be sssslllllooooowwww - unless it's usb3, and even then, won't be great.

cascade9 04-30-2011 02:38 AM

eSATA should be as fast as using the drive internally.

Aside from that, syg00 is right- USB3.0 should be OK, firewire 800 a bit slower, USB 2.0 etc. will be slooooowww.

chaitanyajun12 05-01-2011 12:13 AM

means we can use but that will be very slowww ... right ..?

can u plz just make me clear with what usb3, firewire 800, are actually ..?
and where all these terms come to play in this discussion. I am not clear with this.


Chaitanya.

smeezekitty 05-01-2011 12:27 AM

I ~THINK~ the OP MAY be asking if you can take it out of the case and install it normally inside.

jschiwal 05-01-2011 12:29 AM

If your motherboard supports booting from an external drive, you can simply install onto the external drive, and make sure it is selected first in the boot sequence of your bios.

There are different technologies you might be using, the the other posters are wondering what connection you have for the external drive. A slower USB 2.0 may not perform fast enough for your satisfaction.

If the hard drive inside the enclosure would fit inside your computer, you could remove it and use it to replace the bad drive. This wouldn't work for a 3.5" drive if you have a laptop for instance, but would be the obvious solution if it would fit.

cascade9 05-01-2011 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaitanyajun12 (Post 4342466)
means we can use but that will be very slowww ... right ..?

can u plz just make me clear with what usb3, firewire 800, are actually ..?
and where all these terms come to play in this discussion. I am not clear with this.

External drives need some way of connecting to the computer. Almost all external dirves use USB, firewire or eSATA.

With USB, you get several different versons- USB 1.0, USB 1.1, USB 2.0, USB 3.0.. The lower the version number, the slower. More info, and pics of the connectors, etc here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus

Firewire (IEEE 1394) also has different versions- firewire 400 and firewire 800 are the only types commonly seen at the moment. More info here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface

eSATA is a bit more complicated than USB or firewire in some ways. To simplify, eSATA is more like connecting a HDD directly to an internal SATA port. A bit more info here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#eSATA

Quote:

Originally Posted by jschiwal (Post 4342482)
If the hard drive inside the enclosure would fit inside your computer, you could remove it and use it to replace the bad drive. This wouldn't work for a 3.5" drive if you have a laptop for instance, but would be the obvious solution if it would fit.

Some laptops, in particular 'desktop replacement' models will take a 3.5'' HDD. Uncommon though.


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