No DVD drive - Any options...?

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apollo46 · #1 Post by **apollo46** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:52 pm

Hey all,

Recently upgraded from T42p to X60s.. loving it! But alas i didnt order a docking station with DVD drive. Now I need to reinstall XP and have ordered the recovery disks. I have multiple machines at home with DVD drives and a network. Are there any tricks I can use to boot this machine and reinstall it without a DVD drive.. maybe using network boot? Or the SD slot? Or should I just spend $60 and go buy a usb DVD drive even though it seems like a bit of a waste as I never use discs anymore!

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Cheers!

blackomegax · #2 Post by **blackomegax** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:50 pm

SD is not bootable.

network booting works, but i've never heard of a way to do OS installs (xp/vista wise) over it.

apollo46 · #3 Post by **apollo46** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:08 am

Thanks.. I just thought.. what about booting DOS off my usb pen drive and then loading network drivers and running setup remotely off my network share.. Could that work?? any gurus know?

ducky2802 · #4 Post by **ducky2802** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:44 am

I know you can boot of USB, network, without hitch. I just never tried a USB or network OS install.

But, you can reinstall the OS/oem apps by running the rescue and recovery software if your hidden parition is intact....which is what those recovery discs are anyways.

If it isnt, then I would just bum a usb dvd drive off someone...cause $60 is kinda high for just an external drive.

Im sure there is a way in XP to make a pen drive bootable, then copy over the approriate files to the drive. Again, I havent tried it but I cant imagine it being too hard... I mean, how to all those eee pc users install xp?

tallshorty · #5 Post by **tallshorty** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:27 am

ducky2802 wrote:I know you can boot of USB, network, without hitch. I just never tried a USB or network OS install.

But, you can reinstall the OS/oem apps by running the rescue and recovery software if your hidden parition is intact....which is what those recovery discs are anyways.

If it isnt, then I would just bum a usb dvd drive off someone...cause $60 is kinda high for just an external drive.

Im sure there is a way in XP to make a pen drive bootable, then copy over the approriate files to the drive. Again, I havent tried it but I cant imagine it being too hard... I mean, how to all those eee pc users install xp?

$60 is expensive? Really? I find that being cheap. I am looking to buy the LG slim USB drive. It's like $100 but only requires USB power. It's light and portable.

hyperq · #6 Post by **hyperq** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:06 pm

Vantec makes a SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter for $20. I use it to connect to bare IDE/SATA 2.5, 3.5, and 5.25 inch drives.

I don't have X61, so I don't know whether X61 will boot from it. I guess it should boot from any USB device, right?

aaa · #7 Post by **aaa** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:38 pm

I've installed via DOS off a usb drive before. However, I don't know if the the recovery cds are amenable to that. The way I did it was by copying the XP cd to the usb drive, then there's a setup you can launch from DOS there.

Lumikko · #8 Post by **Lumikko** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:57 am

Doh.. Does anyone have problems with booting 4GB or greater USB-flash drives? BIOS settings are fine, because my X61s boots nicely from 512MB USB-stick. 4GB stick boots nicely 2nd computer, but not on my X61s. Any ideas?

I need to install Vista from USB-stick because I don't have external DVD-drive. Those drives costs too much. =\

hyperq · #9 Post by **hyperq** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:05 pm

Get the Vantec SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter for $20. You can then turn any bare 5.25 inch DVD drive, whether it is IDE or SATA, into a USB drive.

After you are done, return the DVD drive back to your desktop.

aaa · #10 Post by **aaa** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:24 pm

Here's a guide for Vista:
http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns! ... 1665.entry

Since I doubt Vista works off of DOS anymore.
Apparently just using xcopy to copy the Vista disk to the USB somehow made it bootable. Maybe it's some option xcopy has.

Lumikko · #11 Post by **Lumikko** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:28 pm

aaa wrote:Here's a guide for Vista:
http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns! ... 1665.entry

Since I doubt Vista works off of DOS anymore.
Apparently just using xcopy to copy the Vista disk to the USB somehow made it bootable. Maybe it's some option xcopy has.

Actually there is missing a section where stick is made bootable. Making stick bootable isn't my problem. Problem is that 4GB sticks won't even boot Linux or any other OS in X61s. I think that BIOS doesn't understand/support 4GB or bigger sticks. It seems that I have to buy that [censored] USB - SATA adapter. =\

BTW: It would be nice if someone else could confirm that booting X61s with 4GB or greater stick isn't possible. Just to making sure that my stick isn't the problem.

No DVD drive - Any options...?

No DVD drive - Any options...?

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