Laptop advice-- running Windows from external hard drive instead of internal?

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  • Snapdragon

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    I have a POS Dell Inspiron 14 3452 Windows 10 notebook that came with 2GB RAM (which I upgraded to the max of 4GB) and a 29GB non-upgradeable hard drive. I don't even have enough disk space to run windows updates.

    I have a 1TB external hard drive that's sitting around not doing anything. Is there a way to bypass the internal hard drive and run the Dell with Windows and all my files on the external drive? I don't use this laptop a lot, so it's not worth buying a new one if I can make this work. I can get by on the 4GB RAM for the light applications I use it for.
     
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    DoggyDaddy

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    I have a POS Dell Inspiron 14 3452 Windows 10 notebook that came with 2GB RAM (which I upgraded to the max of 4GB) and a 29GB non-upgradeable hard drive. I don't even have enough disk space to run windows updates.

    I have a 1TB external hard drive that's sitting around not doing anything. Is there a way to bypass the internal hard drive and run the Dell with Windows and all my files on the external drive? I don't use this laptop a lot, so it's not worth buying a new one if I can make this work. I can get by on the 4GB RAM for the light applications I use it for.

    I'm no PC expert Snap, so I can't offer any specific advice, but I think there's a way to go into the BIOS and specify which drive your computer boots up from. I know I had to do that when I was playing around with Linux that resided on a thumb drive. I had to point the BIOS to the thumb drive to boot up from there (Linux) if it was present. If I didn't have it plugged in, it would boot from the resident hard drive (Windows 10).
     

    Snapdragon

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    You'll want to claw your face off trying to run windows off the limited bandwidth of a USB2.0 port.
    No more than I did trying to use it with 2GB of RAM. I think I want to try it if I can find a (free) way to clone the internal drive, and then like DD said, change the boot drive in the BIOS.
     

    Cameramonkey

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    Linux should work better. Win10 by itself really needs more than 4G of RAM. And thats without running any programs.

    Sometimes you just need to let it go and move on to a more capable product. I did so a couple weeks ago on an old handheld GPS. It was hard, but in the long run its better.
     

    wtburnette

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    Another recommendation for Linux. You can download Linux Mint here, I recommend the Cinnamon edition. It's pretty intuitive to use, very easy to install and runs pretty well on older equipment. Make sure you use that external drive first to backup any important data that you don't want to lose, then create a bootable USB stick with Linux Mint and boot it up, then follow the directions to install it. It'll run better on your system than Windows and the UI is similar to Windows XP in a lot of ways. It comes with a free version of Libre Office and some other tools, as well as FireFox for a browser. If you don't need anything else, you should be good to go. CM is correct that trying to run Windows from an external hard drive would be very painful.
     

    Snapdragon

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    OK, that may be my next option.

    Nother question, though. Since the hard drive is an [FONT=&quot]eMMC, which is [/FONT]actually just some flash memory set aside on the motherboard and is not actually a HDD, there is a big empty place inside the case where the hard drive would be. Could I somehow hook up an internal hard drive in that space?
     

    Snapdragon

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    Yep, I've got it open, and there is nowhere to connect it. It's missing that component on the MB.

    OK, Linux it is, for now. I have virtually nothing saved on this machine as it is just for light browsing from my recliner. I do my heavy-duty computing (such that it is) from my desktop.
     

    qwerty

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    Mint is a great distro. There may be a small learning curve, but just stick with it.
     

    Snapdragon

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    OK, I've got it downloaded. Do I just copy all of the downloaded files to a flash drive, or is there an .exe that sets up the flash drive?
     

    Snapdragon

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    I probably picked a bad time to do this. I've got a chihuahua/terrier mix who's been barking at the thunder for four solid hours. I'm about to lose my ****ing mind.
     

    wtburnette

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    Also, I believe Dell uses F12 when laptops first boot to control the boot order. You should see a message at the top right of the screen shortly after the Dell symbol comes on after booting your laptop. At that point hit F12 and it should allow you to select your newly created boot disk to boot Linux Mint from.
     

    wtburnette

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    Unless absolutely needed, take a break. Play with the dog, drink some coffee and relax. You can always come back to the laptop issue. I had to do that a few times yesterday because I had to install a fresh copy of Windows on both my gaming rig and the wife's laptop. Good times... :ugh:
     

    gregkl

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    I probably picked a bad time to do this. I've got a chihuahua/terrier mix who's been barking at the thunder for four solid hours. I'm about to lose my ****ing mind.


    Funny coincidence just now. I read this and thought it's not thundering here, must be isolated where you are.

    And then I heard a thunderclap. Going to check the skies now.:)
     

    AngryRooster

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    Funny coincidence just now. I read this and thought it's not thundering here, must be isolated where you are.

    And then I heard a thunderclap. Going to check the skies now.:)

    Just got a severe thunderstorm warning pop up on channel 4 for Rush county. It's in the area. Coming back from VRA in New Castle down to Greensburg it looked sketchy.


    On topic, you can't really go wrong with Linux Mint. I've been running it, or some other form, for about the last 10 years. Every 6 months or so I had to go to my parents house and fix something on their windoze machine. I FINALLY got them to try Mint. My dad doesn't use the computer much anymore but my 78 year old mother is on there all the time. Now I might get a question on how to do something every few months, but the trips to the house to fix something that's broke have stopped. They've been using it for about 2 years now.
     
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