Installing Windows 7 on external hard drive

[Anishgiri]

Suppose I have a pc with hard drive, and I also have an external hardrive, can I install windows on external hard drive, and that external hard drive is also connected with the internal hard drive, it means I have two hard drives.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

MS doesn't have allow you to install it to an external drive mainly because it would make copying windows from pc to pc easier and also even though it will be connected to your machine, it doesn't exactly know what hardware is in your machine. You can try taking it out of the external case, install windows to it then put it back but its very possible that it won't even boot. Why did you want to install windows to an external drive?

[Anishgiri]

I will not install it on external hard drive, I am just wondering if it's possible, but I do want to have two hard drives. Can you set external hard drive as slave? I am not too familiar with these things. If I have extra internal hard drive and I set it as a slave I can install the OS there right?

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

No you can't install the OS to the external drive.

[ShawnP]

yes you can but you need to remove the "removable bit" and will make your external hardrive a "fixed hard drive", and windows will detect it as a HDD. That is what i have done to use my usb as a hdd. But right now i have it formated with exFat, not NTFS.

Here you have two screenshots of it as HDD but as exFAT.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/7214/usbashdd1.th.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/i/usbashdd1.jpg/)

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2408/usbashdd2.th.jpg (http://img692.imageshack.us/i/usbashdd2.jpg/)

The tool for removable bit is a lexar utility. I dont remember the name, but if you google for removable bit it will show up in first results.

PS. I forgot to mention, your windows 7 will work on your machine only. If you install it on your USB, maybe it will be slower than in a real hdd.

[primefalcon]

If you looking for a mobile OS you'll have to look at something like Linux, MS don't want you installing their OS to a portable device since you could install it to that and use it in multiple computer negating the need for multiple licences

[gameutopia]

If you already have windows of some form on your desktop or laptop and the external would be connected by usb you really don't need to install windows on it unless you are trying to do something a little out of the ordinary. On most modern pc's once you plug in the usb external windows will just find the drive. It will probably be pre-formatted already. So pretty much plug and play. You can store whatever you want on the external almost instantly in most cases and for the average users needs for an external.