Busted HDD: Switching to External

[incoherent1]

Yesterday, my Mac Mini's internal HDD died for a second time with the tell-tale click of death and blank boot up screen.

My question: is it possible to permanently boot from an external drive (SSD, likely) and just leave the busted HDD in there? Will it continue to click forever is there some way I can make the OS ignore the busted drive without having to do surgery on the Mini?

 

[GGJstudios]

Yesterday, my Mac Mini's internal HDD died for a second time with the tell-tale click of death and blank boot up screen.

My question: is it possible to permanently boot from an external drive (SSD, likely) and just leave the busted HDD in there? Will it continue to click forever is there some way I can make the OS ignore the busted drive without having to do surgery on the Mini?

Why not just swap the drives? It's not that difficult. No medical degree required.

 

[incoherent1]

Why not just swap the drives? It's not that difficult. No medical degree required.

Mostly because it's an older Mini, and if I'm going to sink money into an SSD, I'd rather have something that can easily serve a different function after the Mini is retired.

 

[eutexian]

so.. is it more difficult to take it out of the mini than it is to put in?

 

[dolphin842]

In System Preferences, you can use the Startup Disk panel to tell OS X to boot from the external disk by default.

Alternatively, if you have a local independent Mac shop near you, they usually can perform an SSD install for ~$50 or so.