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Upgrading Inspiron 9400
My current setup is 60 GB hdd, 1 GB ram, Windows XP, latest flashed BIOS.
My plan is to buy a Samsung 250 GB SATA SSD, put it into a Sabrent hd-to-usb 2.0 enclosure, plug it into my pc and make it bootable, and upgrade ram to 2 GB. Then buy a Windows 7 Pro SP1 32-bit DVD and install it in the SSD. Then boot my system from that drive and install all my s/w, and all my data saved elsewhere. Once stable & I am happy, I'll remove the SSD from its enclosure & install it internally. Then change the boot order to the new C: drive. I assume that Media Direct will be history, but I don't care. Are there any problems with this that I don't know about?
ejn63
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June 26th, 2015 16:00
You may in fact be able to do that, but you must boot the system the way it was installed - if it's installed on a USB drive, it won't boot as an internal, and vice-versa.
donbaja
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June 29th, 2015 12:00
Ok, I am now completely satisfied with the answers, and I will no longer try to do internal vs external USB swaps, very bad idea! I got a great explanation from the Starman (Daniel Starman) at thestarman.pcministry.com. Here is what he sent me about this question:
"Not possible; well, not without a lot of grief and things that could go wrong! My own boss at work asked the same thing, so I had / have a very good incentive for trying to make such a thing to work! But what happens is that the Windows OS; not the MBR or VBR nor even the bootstrap code, but something in the bootmgr or even later the kernel, etc. programs, tests to see whether the code is running from a USB connection, and if so, it stops the boot-up!
And if you attempt to install the OS into a USB drive, it will flat out tell you that it will not do so! M$ themselves have purposely made sure this does not work. Then along comes Windows 8 -- but only the Enterprise edition -- which, if you purchase a 32GB or larger USB drive, but only from an M$ certified to do this manuf. (so I believe they somehow changed the USB drive electronically inside!), then it will allow you to boot-up Windows 8 from that drive... but only if you boot-up on a PC that already has a copy of Windows installed on it!!! IOW, it's only for some guy who's away from his own PC, so he can use one of the other employee's PCs to boot into a drive with his own work on it. Doesn't help you, or me, but might help my boss.
Such nonsense like that is why HACKERS were driven to make their own bootable mini-Windows XP OS, or alter files of the Win 7 OS... which is why it's not really something good to count on. If you want to play, Google Falcon 4 UBCD for the mini-CD, or do a lot of searching on blogs... which almost all end up with some thing that never really works for Win 7."
ejn63
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June 26th, 2015 14:00
You will not be able to install Windows to the drive while it's attached by USB - you will need to replace the hard drive with the SSD and then do the reload of Windows.
donbaja
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June 26th, 2015 16:00
You are probably right. But I thought I could have other operating systems on other external usb drives, and boot from them as needed. I've done this in the past with towers & plug-in drives.
donbaja
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June 26th, 2015 18:00
I believe all this, but I would still like to know why. As an old-school sysadmin, I'm uncomfortable with a solution (even great ones) without an explanation. Something to do with how the two methods do MBRs or PBRs or MPT differently if it thinks it's dealing with an internal HDD vs a USB device (USBEHD vs flash).