External hard drive question

[Yankee4Life]

Hello,

             I have a Windows Vista desktop and I am looking into purchasing an external TB hard drive to go with it. Before I go ahead and do this I have some questions that I hope some of you can answer.

 

1. Who is a good company that in your opinion makes good external TB hard drives? Also, who are ones that I should stay away from?

 

2. Once I get this hard drive can I install Windows 7 on it? What I mean to say is I have Vista on my C drive. The external drive will have another letter. Can Windows 7 run from that drive? Now that I am thinking it over I don't see how, but I could be wrong.

 

That's it I believe. Thank you.

[raidersbball20]

Go with Western Digital. In my experience far more reliable than Seagate. If it's Vista its pretty old so you won't have USB 3.0 ports to take advantage of today's speeds so keep that in mind as well. 

[Yankee4Life]

5 hours ago, raidersbball20 said:

Go with Western Digital. In my experience far more reliable than Seagate. If it's Vista its pretty old so you won't have USB 3.0 ports to take advantage of today's speeds so keep that in mind as well. 

 

Thank you,. I will look for Western Digital. Now how about my second question? Can I run Windows 7 on it like I asked?

[Homer]

Seagate, and WD are decent. There really aren't any in the HDD that are far and above the rest. As for the second question, it'll be more difficult than you think. Sure it's possible, but it might not be worth the headache with what you have to do to make it work. The other option is to start fresh and just dual boot from one drive. But again, that is a lot of work. Is there a reason why you are hanging on to Vista? I just can't think of any reasons to keep Vista over 7. 7 is like the better version of Vista in almost every single way.

[Gordo]

I concur on 7 over Vista.  Plus you'll have security updates as M$ doesn't support Vista any longer.   I don't see any advantage in booting from an external HDD either.  As far as companies, I've had a Lacie 1 TB for I don't know how long.  I don't keep it on continually and only use it for sporadic data backups.  It's been a beast.

[FloridaFan88]

I also agree with the other suggestions. I run Windows 7 and Windows 10 in a dual boot config, and it's been perfect. I keep my clean copy of MVP 2005 on the Windows 7 C drive and keep all my mods on a secondary Windows 7 drive (G drive in my case) and run them from there. My drives are Western Digitals, they've been great. I also have a Western Digital external drive for backups.

[Yankee4Life]

18 hours ago, Homer said:

Seagate, and WD are decent. There really aren't any in the HDD that are far and above the rest. As for the second question, it'll be more difficult than you think. Sure it's possible, but it might not be worth the headache with what you have to do to make it work. The other option is to start fresh and just dual boot from one drive. But again, that is a lot of work. Is there a reason why you are hanging on to Vista? I just can't think of any reasons to keep Vista over 7. 7 is like the better version of Vista in almost every single way.

 

Exactly what I needed to find out. Thank you Homer.

 

To answer your question I have no particular reason to hang on to Vista. I am just not too confident on how to upgrade my system from Vista to Windows 7. I have Windows 7 on a laptop and I really like it and I prefer it to Vista.

 

Thanks to everyone for responding.

[Homer]

It's not too difficult to upgrade to 7 if you want help walking through it. But it is pretty outdated, and for the cost of the OS itself, you might be better just getting a used computer with it already licensed.

[Yankee4Life]

2 hours ago, Homer said:

It's not too difficult to upgrade to 7 if you want help walking through it. But it is pretty outdated, and for the cost of the OS itself, you might be better just getting a used computer with it already licensed.

 

Well, I know I have to back up files that I need. That I can do and then I can re-install them later when 7 replaces Vista.

I didn't know Windows 7 was still that expensive. I thought Microsoft has been pushing version 10 for awhile.

[Homer]

They do push for it, so getting a license for 7 isn't super cheap since you have to get it second hand now. I'm not aware of any legit sites to get it from anymore except Amazon. It was around $100 last time I checked.

[Yankee4Life]

11 minutes ago, Homer said:

They do push for it, so getting a license for 7 isn't super cheap since you have to get it second hand now. I'm not aware of any legit sites to get it from anymore except Amazon. It was around $100 last time I checked.

 

Well I can deal with that. I was thinking much more that that price.

[Homer]

The only issue to keep an eye out for is that the license is legit. But once you find a license, the next thing to do is back up your files. If you have any programs installed, make sure you have the keys for them, and the installation files. Next you will want to find all of the current drivers for all of the hardware on your computer.

[Yankee4Life]

13 hours ago, Homer said:

The only issue to keep an eye out for is that the license is legit. But once you find a license, the next thing to do is back up your files. If you have any programs installed, make sure you have the keys for them, and the installation files. Next you will want to find all of the current drivers for all of the hardware on your computer.

 

Thanks Homer. I will do that. I've already made a short list of what I want to back up and re-install. And I'll be sure to see if the license is on the up-and-up.