Yasha Karant <ykarant@...> writes:

> 
> An alternative approach -- if it will work.  Suppose I purchase a 1 
> Tbyte external USB drive (typically with a NTFS partition//format, but 
> this can be changed).
> Suppose I install such a drive in the target machine that has MS Win 10 
> on the internal hard drive, and then, during the boot (secure boot 
> disabled, legacy boot enabled),
> boot from the SL 7.2 install DVD.  Could I do the full install (I am not 
> worried about partitions, etc., yet -- merely for testing purposes) to 
> the USB drive, not touching the internal harddrive,
> and, after the install, boot the machine from the external USB drive 
> (again, not touching the harddrive).  Is this feasible?  I fully 
> understand that an external USB drive machine will be "slower" than
> a properly configured SATA internal harddrive machine -- but will this work?
> 
> Yasha Karant
> 
> On 04/02/2016 02:28 PM, Chris Schanzle wrote:
> > On 04/02/2016 01:25 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> >> Other than stating that EL 7 will not work, are there any other 
> >> suggestions? 
> >
> > Best option is to remove the drive and put your own in for testing.
> >
> > Alternatively, clone the drive with CloneZilla or if you're more 
> > comfortable, "dd | gzip -1" and muck with it to your hearts 
> > content...if you need to restore it to 'factory condition' just 
> > restore your backup.
> >
> > I do this with ANY new purchase...before turning the system on and 
> > booting it up.
> >
> 
> 
I did that for a few years with Fedora.  I still have a 400GB USB drive with
a couple of versions of Fedora on it (I "walked" forward my Fedora installs
so that I had a stable, previous version install on one set of partitions
and the latest, bleeding edge on another partition set).  I needed a newer
kernel than was shipping with SL/CentOS/RHEL at the time.  Just keep track
of which drive is which when you do the install and change your boot order
so the USB drive has priority if it's attached.

I tend to use this arrangement with my "work" laptops that come with Windows
installed by the IT department on the hard drive.  I boot the systems to
Linux on the external USB and can then escape from Windows when I feel the
need.  

I also found the Linux install on an external drive is even portable between
hardware platforms so an option is to install to the external drive from so
other hardware and just boot the problem laptop from the external drive
after you've confirmed that the installation works.

Cheers,
Dave