Dealing with Betas, or Get Yourself a Pockey
Too many people install beta software on their production computers. Unless you just like pain and suffering, don't do this! Some people work around this by using multiple hard drives, or dual boot situations. These solutions work, but they're expensive and hard to manage.
If you're going to install and play with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 (or any beta, actually), you need to be using software that allows you to create virtual computers. We are obligated to pimp Microsoft's Virtual PC, of course, but there are others you can use. In any case, this software allows you to create a full operating system installation that can run within a window. You can enable undo, so changes you make to the entire computer can be undone. You can layer functionality, so you can build a complete install of the operating system that is read-only, and run a "differencing drive" on top of the read-only virtual PC, allowing you to have multiple copies of the environment all based on the same operating system installation. I'll let me cohort, Brian Randell, wax rhapsodic about the joys of Virtual PC, but every time I use it in public, a lot of people ask me what the heck I'm doing. It works flawlessly. For demos, there's nothing like starting up a virtual PC, doing what you need to do, and never impact the host PC at all.
If you're going to use VPC, however, you're going to need hard drive space, and a relatively fast hard drive, to boot. Although Brian likes using large external Firewire 800 drives for their speed, I am happier with external drives that are small and self-powered. I know there are a lot of external USB 2.0 drives out there, and everyone has their favorite. As with most things, I buy into the "you get what you pay for" theory, and this has turned out to be generally true. In that vein, I've purchased several fast external drives from Pocketec. They use standard laptop hard drives, encased in the smallest possible case along with a USB 2.0/ATA bridge card. You simply won't find a smaller, faster drive. To be honest, the hard drives are no different than those you'll find from any other vendor, but the case and circuitry sets this one apart.
One note: Continuing in the same vein, I've always purchased IBM Thinkpads--I'm a big fan. I've never had a problem powering the Pockey drive using the USB 2.0 ports available on my Thinkpads, but I've never managed to get one to power correctly with a Dell computer. The drive requires a certain amount of power to run, of course, and it seems that Dell simply doesn't provide enough power through its USB 2.0 ports. Pocketec does, however, supply a second USB cable that can be used to supply additional power. This means that your Pockey drive will consume two USB ports, but it's still better than hauling around a power brick.(At least, they used to. Can't vouch for their current packages. It's been a while...)
And for those who like to tinker, these astounding thin and light cases use standard 9mm laptop hard drives. If you outgrow the size of your Pockey, you can extract the existing drive from its case, and replace it with a new, larger one in the future. I've done this twice now, and the case continues to travel with me everywhere.
In addition to the VPCs I use as part of my work, I carry 40GB of ripped CDs, and copies of the installation DVDs for most of the products I would ever need to install on the road. I couldn't imagine travelling without my Pockey.