can i boot my aspire one from my sd card reader?

[rierden]

here is what i want to do. i want to boot my aspire one from the sd card reader and power down my HD for power conservation. is this posible? of course i would want to be able to turn the drive on if i need it. i love my 250gb drive but it is a power hog. any input would be apriciated. i am a bit of a linux noob so please bear with me.

[phillw]

Not heard of from SD, but it can be done from USB stick. Although reports are that it runs quite slowly, compared to a standard install.

Is it this what you are wanting to do ?

Phill.

[markbuntu]

I got a 9 cell battery for my aspire one with a 120GB hdd. runs all day, suspends for a week. I have not turned it off for a month. Reboot only after updates.

Anyway, the bios has no option to boot from sd so you will need to do it from USB stick. The OS will load into ram and you can still put your ~/home and /temp etc on the SD so that will speed things up a little but trying to run strictly from the USB stick can be very slow.

There are some ways to spin down the hdd when it is not being used but I don't know about that.

[rierden]

well basically i was hoping for the battery life of the solid state version when i do not need my hd. already can boot forn usb. was just hoping for the convienence of a card i could leave in the drive. thanks for the info guys. wil keep at it. :-)

[RMOP]

I'm late to your party, I realize, and I'm not using an Inspirion (at least not for an SD Card boot), but I DO boot Ubuntu 9.10 from a Class 6 SD Card on my eeePC. I've not tried it with my Dell, but on the eeePC at least, the boot options show the SD card as a (selectable) boot device, if and only if the SD card is inserted when booting. Sounds simple enough, eh? But, if I turn my eeePC on w/o first inserting the card, the boot options default to the internal drive (which is an encrypted OS-free drive on my eeePC). I then have to power-off, insert the card, power-on, go to boot options, re-select the SC Card, and I'm up and running.

Sorry I'm not at my Dell now, or I'd check. But, other replies suggest it won't boot from a card. Insert one, power-on, and see if it is then selectable from your boot options.

I've been delighted with my new setup. I have all of my OS and data files with me, so if I lose my eeePC, I've only lost hardware, not any personal data.

BTW: I first tried a Class 2 micro-SD card. WAY too slow to be useable. Hence the Class 6. Class 4 would probably work as well.

Good luck.