Deployed in Afghanistan with bad HDD

psywarrior · 09 Nov 2010

I am currently deployed in Afghanistan with the US Army. My internal hard drive crashed last week. As one can suspect, it is rather hard to get parts out here. I have a 1TB HDD that is actually a SATA internal for a desk top, but I have a dock that allows me to use it with any computer with a USB... basically an external (at this point). I have my recovery disks. I've been told there is a way to make windows 7 install to that "external" but had had no luck on finding information or instructions on how to do that. I have no working internal hard drive, my bios is good, it is set to boot external device, internal optical, internal hdd. Can anyone help?

Bare Foot Kid · 09 Nov 2010

Hello psywarrior, welcome to Seven Forums!

First, thank you for your service to your country.

I'm afraid to say there is no practical way to get Windows 7 to run, not to mention install to an (esentially) external Hard Disk Drive (HDD); if there is a way you could connect the HDD directly to the motherboard that would work, but it may make transporting it as "a whole" difficult but it would get you running.

Keep looking up!

Bill2 · 09 Nov 2010

Take a look here, though i dont guarantee it will work at all or work acceptably.

How To Install Windows 7 To USB External Hard Drive [Must Read]

The other option is to boot from an ubuntu (or another linux distro) cd or a windows pe cd, that'll let you use the computer for surfing the web and maybe try copy important files off the hdd, till the replacement hdd arrives.