My laptop hd crashed.How do I turn external portable hdd into primary as a replacement?

Logan_14 · Jan 5, 2016

My laptop's internal hard drive has crashed. Can I turn my external "WD My Passport" portable hdd into my laptops main hard drive as a replacement? If so, what are the steps necessary to make this happen?

So far I've figured out I need to download 'Rufus' and 'Windows ISO'. But I don't know what to do next or how exactly.. or if that's even the right course of action.

Any tips or tutorial would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Boogieman_WD · Jan 5, 2016

Hey there Logan_14. Happy new year!!!

Basically you can turn most external drives into internal ones just by removing their external enclosure, but I strongly recommend that you don't do that with the My Passport HDD. Some of our portable drives have proprietary connectors, which means that you won't be able to use them internally via a standard SATA connection or with another enclosure. Furthermore this voids the warranty of the drive and on top of that, if the HDD has hardware encryption and you have data on it, you won't be able to get it without the drive's original enclosure. So basically it's up to you if you want to take those risks, but I'd advise against it.
On the other hand, if you need help with choosing an internal HDD for your laptop, I'd be glad to assist you.

About the Windows installation - if your Windows is OEM (if it came pre-installed on your laptop's hard drive), you should download the exact same version from Microsoft's website and create a bootable media (you can use a DVD or a USB flash drive) to install it. You should have a sticker on the bottom of your laptop with the product key for your version of Windows. If you don't have one, I'd recommend that you get in touch with the laptop manufacturer's customer support and ask for assistance.
If you have a retail copy of Windows, you just install it as usual.

Please let me know if you have any questions whatsoever.
Boogieman_WD

Logan_14 · Jan 5, 2016

Thanks for the response! Much appreciated. Well, I don't want to stick the external hd into the laptop, I still want to keep it outside just plugged in via USB. How do you recommend I go about doing it that way?

Boogieman_WD :

Hey there Logan_14. Happy new year!!!

Basically you can turn most external drives into internal ones just by removing their external enclosure, but I strongly recommend that you don't do that with the My Passport HDD. Some of our portable drives have proprietary connectors, which means that you won't be able to use them internally via a standard SATA connection or with another enclosure. Furthermore this voids the warranty of the drive and on top of that, if the HDD has hardware encryption and you have data on it, you won't be able to get it without the drive's original enclosure. So basically it's up to you if you want to take those risks, but I'd advise against it.
On the other hand, if you need help with choosing an internal HDD for your laptop, I'd be glad to assist you.

About the Windows installation - if your Windows is OEM (if it came pre-installed on your laptop's hard drive), you should download the exact same version from Microsoft's website and create a bootable media (you can use a DVD or a USB flash drive) to install it. You should have a sticker on the bottom of your laptop with the product key for your version of Windows. If you don't have one, I'd recommend that you get in touch with the laptop manufacturer's customer support and ask for assistance.
If you have a retail copy of Windows, you just install it as usual.

Please let me know if you have any questions whatsoever.
Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD · Jan 5, 2016

Well, basically there's no native way to install Windows on your external drive and run it off of it. You might find some guides which include 3rd party software in order to bypass that, but I strongly recommend against it.
If you try installing Windows directly to your external drive you should get this warning:

You'd have to get a new internal drive.

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My laptop hd crashed.How do I turn external portable hdd into primary as a replacement?

Logan_14

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