Hard drive portibility

[Jared]

I have two computer both running windows xp pro. In each
of them I have a removable serial ata drive bay. Inside
my bay is a WD 160gig sata drive. What I want to do is
be able to remove the drive from one computer and place
it in the other computer. This drive will be going back
and forth several times a week, and maybe as often as
being in both computers every week day.

Right now I can get the drive setup in one computer and
use it fine, but when I place it in the new computer I
have to import and reactivate the driving using disk
manager before I can use it. If this setup was just for
me I could just deal with it since importing and
reactivating the drive takes me maybe a minute to do.
The problem is this setup is for one of my users and
would rather not give them permissions to access computer
manager.

Is there a way to make a normal serial ata drive as
removable so that each installation of windows xp will
recognize the drive and not require me to reactivate the
drive each time I change computers with it?

If not am I reduced to getting a usb 2.0 or firewire
external drive to move between the two machines?

Thanks for your help
~Jared

 

[Jared]

Also, if there is not a way to mark a drive a removable
is there a command line interface for the computer
manager? Somthing I could make a script that would
automatically import and activate the drive every time I
boot up the computer.

Thanks again
~Jared

 

[Peter Hutchison]

I have two computer both running windows xp pro. In each
of them I have a removable serial ata drive bay. Inside
my bay is a WD 160gig sata drive. What I want to do is
be able to remove the drive from one computer and place
it in the other computer. This drive will be going back
and forth several times a week, and maybe as often as
being in both computers every week day.

Right now I can get the drive setup in one computer and
use it fine, but when I place it in the new computer I
have to import and reactivate the driving using disk
manager before I can use it. If this setup was just for
me I could just deal with it since importing and
reactivating the drive takes me maybe a minute to do.
The problem is this setup is for one of my users and
would rather not give them permissions to access computer
manager.

Is there a way to make a normal serial ata drive as
removable so that each installation of windows xp will
recognize the drive and not require me to reactivate the
drive each time I change computers with it?

If not am I reduced to getting a usb 2.0 or firewire
external drive to move between the two machines?

I suggest you get another copy of Windows XP Pro. You have one licence
for ONE computer, not TWO, not even shared! XP is not designed to be
used in this way.

Peter Hutchison
Windows FAQ
http://www.pcguru.plus.com/