No hard drive

[sd3]

Hello,
my laptops hard drive is busted so how can i use my flash drive as a hard drive ?

 

[Hawkeye22]

You mean a usb flash drive? If so, you can't use your flash drive as a HDD. You need to replace the HDD.

 

[sd3]

You mean a usb flash drive? If so, you can't use your flash drive as a HDD. You need to replace the HDD.

well i saw some pc's use flash drive as normal hdd so why couldnt i make this work ? because i really need my laptop but i still have to wait bout a couple of weeks till i get a replacement hdd

 

[Hawkeye22]

Your motherboard has to support booting from USB. Also, I don't think windows will allow you to choose a USB drive as an install disk. Which OS are you trying to use?

 

[sd3]

Your motherboard has to support booting from USB. Also, I don't think windows will allow you to choose a USB drive as an install disk. Which OS are you trying to use?

as far as i know the motherboard supports usb booting and was about to install win xp but i believe that you are right win xp wont let me install on an usb drive . Know any other os that might work ?

 

[CaedenV]

many linux distros will let you do this, but it is a bad idea.
HDDs transfer speed at aprox 80-120MB/s, flash drives (assuming you have a good one that can saturate the USB port) will cap out at 20MB/s. Most budget flash drives only have a read of about 10-15MB/s, and write at 2-3MB/s which would be painfully slow to run an OS on... but I suppose it is better than nothing.

Also, you use to need a bootable flash drive, as well as a mobo that supported booting off of USB, but I am not sure if this is true any longer.