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    XPS M1710 2nd Hard drive options

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by lancorp, May 30, 2006.

  1. lancorp

    lancorp Notebook Virtuoso

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    I'm wanting to start working with Windows Vista Beta 2, and am looking into options to boot to a 2nd hard drive on my XPS M1710.

    At this point, I'm investigating two options:

    1) Having a 2nd hard drive caddy with drive, and would require I remove/replace the hard drive everytime I switch back and forth from XP to Vista (not desireable). Where would I get a drive caddy and does anyone know the part number?

    2) Using D/DOCK with internal media bay loaded with a 2nd hard drive. With this option, I'm not sure I have the option to boot from this drive in the M1710 BIOS. Anyone have any experience with this? Also, I would guess the interface on this media bay isn't very high performance (maybe IDE).

    Any other ideas for booting from a 2nd hard drive? (USB would be too slow).

    Thanks!
     
    lancorp, May 30, 2006
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  2. mZimm

    mZimm Notebook Evangelist

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    I have access to come hard drive caddies. PM me for details.

    It is not possible to boot from an external hard drive; so those are your only options as far as I know.
     
    mZimm, May 30, 2006
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  3. jcaulley

    jcaulley Notebook Consultant

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    Are you saying that it is not possible to boot any OS from an external hard drive or is this a limitation of Windows? I run Linux from an external hard drive and the USB 2.0 interface seems to handle this very well. I didn't really notice any difference in drive access between having it on the USB port and when I had the drive internal to the computer.
     
    jcaulley, May 30, 2006
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  4. mZimm

    mZimm Notebook Evangelist

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    Yes, I was referring to Windows. I have booted Linux from an external hard drive as well; but Windows won't do it for some reason. Windows doesn't have a problem booting from the hard drive caddy though since it's connected to the IDE channel.
     
    mZimm, May 30, 2006
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  5. drumfu

    drumfu super modfu

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    is there a reason you don't just dual boot your machine? that's what i did with the earlier release of the vista beta
     
    drumfu, May 30, 2006
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  6. jcaulley

    jcaulley Notebook Consultant

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    lancorp, not sure if you are willing to spend a little money to do this, but if you are this is an Xpress card that will give you an external SATA capability. Couple that with an external SATA enclosure (~$25) and you can have an external harddrive that runs at internal HDD speeds and will allow you to install windows.
     
    jcaulley, May 30, 2006
    #6