External DVD to boot i910?
in [Dell]
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From: BillW50 on 28 Dec 2009 15:57 In news:aIKdnWU8M8A4l6XWnZ2dnUVZ_jydnZ2d(a)earthlink.com, Timothy Daniels typed on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:32:23 -0800: > "BillW50" wrote: >> Timothy Daniels typed: >>> And: "The first hurdle is having a PC in which the BIOS will >>> allow you to configure the USB port to act as a bootable device." >>> >>> Hmmm... It sounds like it's all dependent on the BIOS. Since that >>> seems to be so, for booting from an external rotational HD, I'd >>> rather just buy a desktop with an eSATA port on the motherboard. >> >> Hi Tim! Why does it have to be a desktop? As some laptops already >> come with eSATA port(s). And for the ones that doesn't, you can >> buy CardBus or ExpressCard ones for under 20 bucks. > > I haven't been in the market for a laptop for a year and a half, > but when I bought my XPS M1330 laptop, there weren't any > laptops that had eSATA ports (that I could find). I did buy an > eSATA ExpressCard, hoping that I could boot from it, but I > couldn't, and the inability to boot with an eSATA HD on an > ExpressCard was confirmed by 2 tech reps at SIIG. When I > called Dell about a month ago, several sales reps AND tech reps > denied that Dell desktops with eSATA on the motherboard > could boot from an external eSATA HD, but when pressed, they > admitted that they officially "didn't know" because booting from > an external eSATA HD was unsupported by Dell. I expect that > the machines with eSATA boot just fine from external HDs, but > Dell's attorneys have advised that Dell not to make it an acknow- > ledged "feature". Hi Tim! Oh that is disappointing. As that was next on my list of things to try out. At least it is very easy to swap out hard drives here. And my M465 has two hard drives to work with. The main is a SATA and the second is a PATA. How weird is that? -- Bill Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2
From: Timothy Daniels on 29 Dec 2009 01:29
"BillW50" wrote: > Timothy Daniels typed: >> "BillW50" wrote: >>> .... some laptops are already coming with eSATA ports. <grin> >> >> That is quite interesting to me. Which laptops are >> these? > > Hi Tim! I didn't know of any either about 5 minutes before I posted it. That is until I searched on Google and I found > lots of them. <grin> This is great news! eSATA has been slow to catch on as it seems everyone wanted USB 2.0 for external hard drives. Why, I don't know, but I suspect that it had to do with making plug-n-play really work for eSATA and that awkwardly stiff eSATA shielded cable. *TimDaniels* |