September 11, 200619 yr I have an older desktop that does not have a DVD in it.the unattended install that I have created is 2.5GBs and fits on DVD. I was wondering if I boot from an external USB hard drive with the install files from the DVD?note: i do not want to go out and buy a DVD drive since this is a company computer and I would have to wait weeks for the authorization of a new DVD drive.
September 11, 200619 yr Shouldn't be a problem, as long as your BIOS supports booting from USB devices. You'd have to make the USB drive bootable yourself though.
September 11, 200619 yr Yes, it's possible.Go into your BIOS and near Booting Options ut should say something along the lines of... "USB Boot" Mine says that =/.You'll have to set the jumper on your external harddrive to master as well.
September 11, 200619 yr Author ok... thats good to know.the drive is recognized as bootable in the bios and when i do an F12 it shows up as one of the devices to boot from.how do i go about making the USB drive bootable?do I need a tool to do this? Edited September 11, 200619 yr by metalguy90
September 11, 200619 yr It may help to have a screwdriver to open the External Harddrive case. And average finger nail size to switch the jumper.Once you open the case, pull the Harddrive out. Where the cables come out there should be 5-6 rows of 2 vertical prongs. There should be a little colored brick (black or blue). That's the jumper. Take it off and set it to (Master or Primary - Same thing). That can be found by reading the top label of the harddrive. If there's nothing about jumpers on there. Look the model up on the internet and get the product guide.Jumper Picture:http://www.mysuperpc.com/hdu/wd1200jb_jumper_pins.jpghttp://www.hiroinc.com/Harddrive/hd2.jpgHope that helps.Derek.
September 11, 200619 yr how do i go about making the USB drive bootable?do I need a tool to do this?Boot from a Win98 CD and format the USB drive using the /s option. You could also try to make it bootable through the SYS command:SYS [drive]: ...but that might fail if the disk already contains data. Formatting the drive will erase all data from the disk! Edited September 11, 200619 yr by Ctrl-X
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