I bought a new HDD and the old one is still working with an OS (Win XP)
in it. If I buy a USB adaptor and plug my old HDD (with XP in it) in
my laptop, and choose boot from USB, is it possible to boot it up and
use it this way? If not, how can I boot from USB? Does it require
some kind of special USB drive? Thanks.

Probably, IF the laptop bios supports booting from a USB drive. Not all
do, but most very recent models do. The A55 is a year or two old, so
I'm not sure about that model; it's right about the time that this
capability was added to common laptops.


manuhack wrote:
> I bought a new HDD and the old one is still working with an OS (Win XP)
> in it. If I buy a USB adaptor and plug my old HDD (with XP in it) in
> my laptop, and choose boot from USB, is it possible to boot it up and
> use it this way? If not, how can I boot from USB? Does it require
> some kind of special USB drive? Thanks.
>

Barry Watzman wrote:
> Probably, IF the laptop bios supports booting from a USB drive. Not all
> do, but most very recent models do. The A55 is a year or two old, so
> I'm not sure about that model; it's right about the time that this
> capability was added to common laptops.
>

Thanks, if my bios can't do it, is it possible to upgrade the bios?
Maybe it's out of the scope of this group, though.

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:45aed1f8$0$8984$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> Probably, IF the laptop bios supports booting from a USB drive. Not all
> do, but most very recent models do. The A55 is a year or two old, so I'm
> not sure about that model; it's right about the time that this capability
> was added to common laptops.
>

The booting from USB is a bit more selective than that. Laptops of around
three or four years old will boot from a USB floppy disk drive, but not
necessarily from a USB HDD (or anything else). The BIOS should specifically
have an option for USB HDD (or similar wording). Note that on many BIOS
setups, only the options that are actualy avaliable are offered, so you may
have to have the USB HDD plugged in when you enter the set up screen.
>
> manuhack wrote:
>> I bought a new HDD and the old one is still working with an OS (Win XP)
>> in it. If I buy a USB adaptor and plug my old HDD (with XP in it) in
>> my laptop, and choose boot from USB, is it possible to boot it up and
>> use it this way? If not, how can I boot from USB? Does it require
>> some kind of special USB drive? Thanks.
>>