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Well, my computer is nearly out of space (it only started out with like 80 Gigs ) and I'm trying to decide if I should get a whole new internal HD, wipe my old one, reinstall everything, etc. or if I should buy an External HD. But the main reason I need more memory is for games, and a guy my mom works with (he's a computer semi-wiz) said you can't run games off of an external HD, as it doesn't have the OS on it. I would like to know (if anyone else does) if this is true?

Thanks.

Listen to the man - it's not just that you don't have an OS on it; you don't have any sort of processor for that hard drive, because it's probably just connected with a USB cable. You'll need to run games (or any program, really) off of a local drive.

Alright, I was pretty sure he was right, just wanted to double check. Thanks

Blade wrote:...a guy my mom works with (he's a computer semi-wiz) said you can't run games off of an external HD, as it doesn't have the OS on it.

Tell that guy he's wrong, I don't know about all games, but i'm running EAW from an external hd without any problems, I also work directly from it frequently.

AceMastermind wrote:

Blade wrote:...a guy my mom works with (he's a computer semi-wiz) said you can't run games off of an external HD, as it doesn't have the OS on it.

Tell that guy he's wrong, I don't know about all games, but i'm running EAW from an external hd without any problems, I also work directly from it frequently.

How is that connected?

It's connected with a USB cable and once connected to your computer it acts just like any other drive on your PC and works off your normal system files.

Maveritchell wrote:Listen to the man - it's not just that you don't have an OS on it; you don't have any sort of processor for that hard drive, because it's probably just connected with a USB cable. You'll need to run games (or any program, really) off of a local drive.

The only difference between an internal (as you say local) and an external drive is that the internal is connected via SATA and the external uses USB (or eSATA in some cases). No processor is "for" a certain HD and you don't need an OS on the HD to run a program from it.

I don't think you'll be able to transport your games around though (plug it in and play them on a different computer).
Some games might be able to do it, but others may not.

Thanks for all the advice guys.
I'm not as much worried about transporting them around, but if you can play them, on the computer that they were installed, that's great.

I was also thinking (of course this was on the "You can't run programs from an External HD" thought train) but would you be able to install a game on your computer, move the files to an External HD, and then just put it back in C:/ when you wanted to play it? Or does it not work like that?

I have steam and a bunch of games installed on my external hard drive, and they work fine.
You can cut a game from the c: drive to an external, then paste it back into the c: drive when you want to play, but you can't cut from c: to an external and run from that, you'd have to install it.

Sorry to bump in
But I was wondering if it is possible to keep the game files on an external HD and never move them over into the (C:) drive?
It might be hard to install a game into the external HD, but is it possible?

The only issue with installing to an external drive is speed. Internal drives use IDE (older computers) or SATA (newer), both of which are faster than USB 2.0. So load times would be slower, but so long as you installed it to that drive, Windows will know to look on that drive for the game. Now if you ever wanted to move it back to an internal drive you would need to uninstall it, then reinstall it on an internal drive.

You can also get an external that uses eSATA, that has twice the transfer speed of USB 2.0.

Cool, thanks for the answers!