I have an iMac 21.5 late 2009, the hard drive has failed.

Instead of spending £200 replacing the internal hard drive, is it possible to run Lion off an external firewire 800 hard drive. If so, what are the negatives. The employee at western computers told me that it will run slower than it would with an internal hard drive, and I don't want that. So I would like to know what the implications of using a firewire 800 external hard drive to run my OSX from.

PappaSmalls wrote:
Instead of spending £200 replacing the internal hard drive, is it possible to run Lion off an external firewire 800 hard drive. If so, what are the negatives. The employee at western computers told me that it will run slower than it would with an internal hard drive, and I don't want that. So I would like to know what the implications of using a firewire 800 external hard drive to run my OSX from.
You can take your machine to other AASP's for cost estimates if you are not happy with the one you recieved. However the answer to your question is yes you can install Lion on an external HD. The downside will be speed because FW800 isn't as fast as SATA. In short you were being told the truth. I'd recommend two things, get the internal HD replaced and next time purchase AppleCare to protect your investment. Had you done this the cost of AppleCare would have more than paid for itself and you would have a new HD installed by now. AppleCare will extend the warranty to 3 years and also include 3 years of telephone support. You can buy AppleCare within the first year of ownership of a new Mac, currently you can find it on Amazon for as low as $125USD and yes it's an international warranty.

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