Booting from external USB drive

[benevolent001]

Hi

I am finding space constraints these days and thinking to buy external HDD on USB interface , i wanted to know is it possible to use external HDD as normal drive , can i boot through it normally , i would be removing my present drive from computer , the reason for buying external drive is portability

I have read its possible to boot from it , but would it be fine for HDD and life of drive?

thanks for your help

[bill]

That depends on your BIOS. Can you set a USB or FireWire device in the boot path? A lot of older machines can't from my experience.

[benevolent001]

Oh , i have to check it out , my machine is like 9 year old , i guess it wont be having that option

[bill]

The question then is why do you need to have a portable boot drive? I never put important data on the boot drive/partition. Put the OS and Programs in their own partition and then put the data in another. You can always reinstall those. The data is what is important.