Running WoW on seconadry HD on my work computer

[Keller]

Facts: I am going to France for about 6 weeks over the Holidays. My wife will be working in the archives M-F. I don't have any intention of visiting Versailles, a random museum, or reading trashy French rags on these days. I do, however, want to run a random BG or Arena.

I work for a professional firm, with a work issued laptop. This laptop has the capacity to run WoW, but I was expressly prohibited from installing games on the computer.

I currently play on my desktop and will not be bringing it to France. My options, as I saw them yesterday, were (1) buy a laptop, (2) find a cheap internet cafe, and (3) stop playing WoW for the 6 week period.

But today I had a break-through. I have a 500GB external HD w/ tons of space available. Why not install WoW to that drive and just use my work issued laptop to play?

What potential exposure exists here? Will I be able to quarantine the WoW files to the external? Will I have terrible lag (I think it's USB 2.0)? If I am not allowed to install on my computer, do you think that prohibits installing to an external HD and using the ram/processor to run the application?

Any other thoughts?

[Kranar]

Do this...

Install Windows XP on your external hard drive and boot your computer from the external drive. Then install WoW on your external hard drive.

There will be absolutely no exposure.

[Keller]

Do this...

Install Windows XP on your external hard drive and boot your computer from the external drive. Then install WoW on your external hard drive.

There will be absolutely no exposure.

This is why I love the PC.

Thanks Kranar!

[The Ponzzz]

This is good to know...

[Skeeter]

Versailles is more than a museum, worth seeing for the gardens alone. I was very impressed.

[Drew2]

That's assuming your work hasn't disabled booting from USB drives in the BIOS. And hasn't set a BIOS password.

In which case you're fuuucked.

[Keller]

Versailles is more than a museum, worth seeing for the gardens alone. I was very impressed.

No doubt. But I've spent about 12 hours there already in my life (3 trips there, averaging about 4 hours each, by my estimate). More than adequate, imo. I played Frisbee near the "reflection pool," toured Marie Antoinette's summer cottage, and took plenty of pretty pictures of flowers in the gardens. Plus the generic tour of the main estate, twice.

IMO, if you want to have a fantastic time in Paris, eat your way through the city. Open air markets for lunch, with dinners at local brasseries or home-made, from ingredients left over from the lunch menu. Between eating -- walk around the arrondisemont's streets.

[Keller]

That's assuming your work hasn't disabled booting from USB drives in the BIOS. And hasn't set a BIOS password.

In which case you're fuuucked.

How do I check if there is a BIOS password before I go out and buy a new HD? (Kranar suggested I start from a clean HD)

[Parkbandit]

How much is a newish laptop? $400? $500?

[Drew2]

For $500 it won't run WoW for shit. Any laptop worth buying is over a grand in most cases.

Keller: Depending on the brand of laptop you have, when you boot the computer it should tell you what key to push to enter the BIOS or "Setup". Different computers call it different things sometimes. In most cases it's the DEL(ete) key. But that's not always true.

[Keller]

How much is a newish laptop? $400? $500?

I've been seeing laptops I'd consider buying starting around $650.

[Drew2]

I'm just a laptop snob I guess.

[Keller]

BIOS was already set to boot from: USB Flash Drive, USB CD, USB HD, Internal HD. So I didn't need to change anything.

This is definately a welcome turn of events!

[Sean of the Thread]

Wow all I got out of this post was that you're married. And now I feel really bad for you and will never make fun of you behind your back again.


All married men should make a secret fraternity imo.

[Drew2]

Sean just wants to have weekly married men circle jerks imo.

[Keller]

Sean just wants to have weekly married men circle jerks imo.

As long as domestic partners are excluded . . .

[Drew2]

Because it's completely OK if it's all 'straight' men.

[Tsa`ah]

A little late, but since laptop hds are modular ... you could have just purchased a second internal and just swapped them.

[Drew2]

external is cheaper for the space, and you don't have to have a screwdriver.

dumb idea tsa'ah, wtg.

[Tsa`ah]

When I did have a work issued laptop, it was a single screw and 50 buck investment on my part.

Storage wasn't what I was going for. 20 gig was ample for me to play movies, mp3s, browse, IM ... etc.

Playing WoW on the other hand, I don't know what kind of laptop he has, let alone the specs. But just from personal experience, using pricewatch.com will normally yield some pretty good deals on most components. He just has the problem of the internal being useless if work hands him a different laptop. Then again, there's e-bay.

[Methais]

Doesn't/didn't Blizzard ban accounts playing WoW from foreign IPs? i.e. playing the US version in Europe, playing the EU version in the US, etc.

[Drew2]

With the amount of Aussies on my server I think that's false.

[Tsa`ah]

I believe, though I'm not sure, it has more to do with crossing asian servers (to and from).

[Shifted]

that would suck, cause i'm buying the EU version, and i would hate not to be able to play it when i visit the states.