To turn your external hard drive into system storage for booting, you can follow these steps:
- Check compatibility: Ensure that your computer’s BIOS or UEFI supports booting from an external USB device. Most modern computers have this capability, but it’s worth verifying before proceeding.
- Prepare the external hard drive: Connect your external hard drive to your computer and ensure it’s recognized. Backup any important data on the drive as the process of making it a system storage will require formatting and erasing the existing data.
- Format the external hard drive: Open the Disk Management utility on Windows or Disk Utility on macOS to format the external hard drive. Format it using the appropriate file system for your operating system (e.g., NTFS for Windows or APFS/HFS+ for macOS). Ensure to select the option to create a bootable partition during the formatting process.
- Create a bootable operating system: Obtain a bootable installation media for your desired operating system. This can be a USB flash drive or a DVD containing the operating system installation files. Follow the instructions provided by the operating system’s official documentation to create the bootable media.
- Configure the computer’s boot order: Restart your computer and access the BIOS or UEFI settings. Navigate to the boot options and change the boot order to prioritize USB or external devices. Save the changes and exit the BIOS or UEFI settings.
- Boot from the external hard drive: Insert the bootable installation media into a USB port on your computer. Restart the computer and it should boot from the external hard drive. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the operating system onto the external hard drive.
- Complete the installation: Proceed with the installation of the operating system on the external hard drive as you would with a regular installation. During the installation process, make sure to select the external hard drive as the destination for the installation.
- Configure the external hard drive as the default boot device: Once the installation is complete, access the BIOS or UEFI settings again. Set the external hard drive as the default boot device to ensure that your computer automatically boots from it.
- Test the boot process: Restart your computer and verify that it boots from the external hard drive. Ensure that the operating system on the external hard drive functions properly.
Please note that using an external hard drive as a system storage for booting can have performance limitations, as the transfer speeds may not be as fast as an internal hard drive or SSD. Additionally, keep in mind that the external hard drive needs to be connected to your computer for it to function as the system storage
