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General discussion

XP on a Ext HD

Nov 29, 2006 1:01AM PST

I was wondering if it is possible to install Boot Camp (and XP) on an External HD inorder to not fill up the one in my macbook.
Thanks for the Info

Discussion is locked

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No.
Nov 29, 2006 1:06AM PST

I'll decline to repeat why, but frankly XP isn't bright enough to run from USB or firewire drives. You know there are a few OSes that can. Just not this one.

And yes, someone hacked it but imagine trying to actually use that?

Bob

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Another Question
Nov 29, 2006 3:47AM PST

ok, Thanks. One more question.
Can I put xp on my mac then use an Ext HD to save my games and run them from it.

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Yes. But beware FAT32 on USB.
Nov 29, 2006 4:29AM PST

Research that and you discover too many posts about people asking how to recover their files. FAT32 is not that robust so don't entrust it to keep your files around.

Bob

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That answer made me think of something...
Dec 1, 2006 6:23AM PST

I use a couple of 1/2 gig thumb drives to run stuff from home to school, work, and back home again... most of the stuff is done on a mac but I do some school work such as CAD on a PC.

I found early in the present school semester that I was having problems with another thumb drive (a pny 1 gig model) losing data so I changed brands and also keep the PC stuff on a separate thumb drive from my mac produced content.

Considering you now see 2, 3, 4 gig thumb drives and the little pocket hard drives that hold even more...A couple questions come to mind...

First, how are these drives (especially the flash drives) formatted?

Can/should you format a thumb drive to erase data using your mac disk utilities and can it still be used cross platform if you do?

Does mixing files produced on separate computers but stored on one drive create problems?

grim

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Flash drives and formatting
Dec 1, 2006 7:07AM PST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive

First, how are these drives (especially the flash drives) formatted?
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_mass_storage_device_class

Can/should you format a thumb drive to erase data using your mac disk utilities and can it still be used cross platform if you do?
>>> Can, Yes; Should? Up to you. Yes.

Does mixing files produced on separate computers but stored on one drive create problems?
>>> In theory, no, in practice, problems are technically possible. For the most part, Mac-produced documents have a data fork and an applications fork. Typically, Mac docs do not require the three letter extension to identify the application which should launch to open the document. Windows does not have an applications fork - hence the requirement to have the three letter extension to identify the application associated with a particular document type. So, for example, if you have a Mac-produced document that has no extension and you double click it in the Windows environment, the "Open With" dialog will open. If you "open with" the wrong application AND the little box that says "always open these documents with this application", then you can see how it *might* get a bit exciting. A workaround is to use the extensions in the Mac environment - it is unnecessary, but will keep things unscrewed, as it were... But this should have no bearing on the integrity of the actual thumb drive...