Swapping drives in my notebook

[SuperSet]

Hey guys,
Looking for some help from the techies here.. I've been given a new govt-issued laptop and it's quite nice. I'd like to run some of my personal software (video and sound editor, match pics, etc.) on it but don't want that intermingled with the other work stuff on here. Do they make devices that you can just swap between the work and personal hard drive easily, without having to remove screws and such? I'm not that tech savvy so the easier the better. Any links would be helpful.
Thanks!

[brassburnz]

Buy yourself a portable hard drive. I have a 750 gig from Western Digital I picked up at Costco for about $90. They may even be cheaper than that now. USB powered and compact.

[armygunsmith]

You have 2 options. If your laptop is capable of booting from a USB device, you can install the OS on the USB drive. Your other, more realistic option is to use a virtual machine on the laptop. That way, your personal stuff is segregated from your work stuff in the simplest manner. As an additional measure, I would create the virtual machine in an encrypted container (Truecrypt), that way your personal data is safe as well.

[SuperSet]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I like the external hard drive thing but how can I tell if my laptop can boot from there?

[armygunsmith]

You'll have to check the BIOS. Sometimes it has to be enabled there. On Dell computers, if you press F12 at boot time, you get the option to choose your boot device. If your computer is fairly new, it should be an option.

[SuperSet]

Ah, gotcha. I'll have to ask my IT guys how to get to that. BTW, is it slower to operate booting from that external drive?

[armygunsmith]

Yes, it is slower booting an OS from an external drive. That's why I suggested using a Virtual Machine on your laptop.

[Ricky-Ray]

I have a work laptop and I wanted to do the exact same thing as you. All I had to do was buy a extra laptop hard drive and I contacted Dell (that's the laptop we use at work) about the and bought the hard drive rail adapter for a few bucks. There's only 2 screws on my laptop that are locking the drive in so I just remove those 2 screws and now I can just pop in the work drive or my personal drive whenever I want. No need for external hard drive or usb drive. Just a matter of shutting down the computer slide the hard drive out and then slide in the other one and power it back on and there you go, completely different computer.

[JDay]

Buy yourself a portable hard drive. I have a 750 gig from Western Digital I picked up at Costco for about $90. They may even be cheaper than that now. USB powered and compact.

I'd check if the machine has an eSATA port on it first. If it does you should get an external drive that has eSATA since it will run just as fast as an internal hard drive. You can then install an OS on that drive and boot it when needed.

[JDay]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I like the external hard drive thing but how can I tell if my laptop can boot from there?

All modern systems can, however the eSATA route is the best option.

Ah, gotcha. I'll have to ask my IT guys how to get to that. BTW, is it slower to operate booting from that external drive?

Yes, it is slower booting an OS from an external drive. That's why I suggested using a Virtual Machine on your laptop.

Not if you use eSATA. Almost all new laptops have an eSATA port on them.

[SuperSet]

Hmm... eSATA. It looks like my laptop has one of those ports. I'm assuming that I can buy an eSATA hard drive enclosure from Fry's? Do I need an external power source also?

[JDay]

Hmm... eSATA. It looks like my laptop has one of those ports. I'm assuming that I can buy an eSATA hard drive enclosure from Fry's? Do I need an external power source also?

Yes, however it should come with a power cable that plugs into a USB port.

[high_revs]

Buy yourself a portable hard drive. I have a 750 gig from Western Digital I picked up at Costco for about $90. They may even be cheaper than that now. USB powered and compact.

i actually just tried this last night so that i can try different type of freeware i'm trying to learn right now. window 7 enterprise 64 and 32 bit said "cannot install on external device via usb." i did more searches and geuss i have to install virtual machine s/w (not same as vmware iirc), do some fannaling, install and then run some kind of patch.

i was hoping an alternative (and probably faster) was installing on a usb flash drive large enough for os and some key programs, or just OS and put the programs install on the external drive. but i would have to mark the drives a particular letter and much lower on the alphabet to they don't get taken/replaced by other plug-n-play devices.

[SuperSet]

Thanks for all the advice. I picked up an external eSATA drive from Fry's and can set it up to boot from. Works perfectly.

[brassburnz]

I'd check if the machine has an eSATA port on it first. If it does you should get an external drive that has eSATA since it will run just as fast as an internal hard drive. You can then install an OS on that drive and boot it when needed.

I just picked up a new laptop that has the eSATA port. Thanks for the info. Looks like the back-up for this laptop will be an eSATA drive.