>>>We currently have some great sales on USB external hard drives here, which I will get as a backup, but I wondered if it could be used as a primary drive. Can you boot from a USB device just like I would a CD? Is this determined by the BIOS, so only newer PCs might have the option?
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>>Yes you can boot from USB device. I often boot from my Flash Drive, but I think you could do this only on new PCs
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>Do you have a full operating system on your flash, or just a DOS boot? If full, how did you install to it?

No, I have a image of my disk, made with Norton GHOST. After booting from Flash I can only restore my Disk. Never tryed to install full OS on it. But I could try this weeked.