# Is this hardware setup viable for booting? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695 "2008-04-02T18:00:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/1 "2008-04-02T18:00:07Z")
So last week I set up my computer to dual-boot Ubuntu and XP. I tried to do Wine in Ubuntu to open XP stuff (mainly for Gchat), but that didn’t work, and VMware won’t work on my machine (something about i386, I don’t really remember). I’m satisfied with that setup for now, but there’s something I’m curious about for my next computer. Suppose I had Ubuntu (or some other Linux distro) on my main hard drive, and XP on either an external hard drive or a (8-16 gig) jump drive. Would that allow me to boot into either, and not have to bother with picking the OS if the XP drive isn’t connected? ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/2 "2008-04-02T18:15:04Z")
I’m afraid not. The choices of OSes to boot is set in a configuration file on the hard drive. The bootloader is not able to determine dynamically whether the hard drive is there or not and take action based on that. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/3 "2008-04-02T20:09:15Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto] I’m afraid not. The choices of OSes to boot is set in a configuration file on the hard drive. The bootloader is not able to determine dynamically whether the hard drive is there or not and take action based on that. [/QUOTE] Not true. Boot selection can be set in the BIOS. If you set the BIOS to check a USB port before it checks the harddrive, then it’ll boot from the USB port if there’s a drive connected (assuming it’s got an OS on it). ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/4 "2008-04-02T20:19:52Z")
Almost forgot, you _don’t_ want to use a flash based drive to boot from. Unless you buy _really_ expensive flashdrives (like the Mac Air uses), the flash memory on typical thumbdrive has a finite number of read and writes that it can handle. It’s not a problem in ordinary use, but running an OS on it, unless you configure the OS to use an ordinary drive for things like the cache, you’ll quickly (as in a matter of weeks, IIRC) kill the thumbdrive. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/5 "2008-04-02T20:22:17Z")
Of course, this ignores the probable difficulties of installing Windows on a removable hard drive. (That is, actually obtaining an installable copy that I can use for this purpose.) ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/6 "2008-04-02T20:46:10Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Not true. Boot selection can be set in the BIOS. If you set the BIOS to check a USB port before it checks the harddrive, then it’ll boot from the USB port if there’s a drive connected (assuming it’s got an OS on it). [/QUOTE] Ah. That’s a clever idea; I hadn’t thought of that. That would work. I suspect the performance problems from putting Windows on a USB drive would make the idea unusable, sadly. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/7 "2008-04-02T20:48:59Z")
On modern machines, you can set the BIOS to boot from an external drive. But I think the performance would be dreadful. You’re better off investing in a removable drive caddy and switching drives that way. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2008, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-hardware-setup-viable-for-booting/443695/8 "2008-04-02T21:00:17Z")
With your new machine you might want to give VMWare another go. I’m a big fan. There’s really not much you can’t do in a VM except for low level hardware stuff or advanced graphics (but they’re working on that too). Never gonna dual boot again if I can help it.