wihophead

Recipes 

I don't see why not, just keep pressing either F2 or Delete while it is POSTing

Desert Monkey

Recipes 

the BIOS is on the motherboard - no HD does not impact it. Now, if it's not a BIOS to support USB, that will limit you.

__________________
"Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence"

—General Jack D. Ripper

brauhaus

Recipes 

well I'm hoping it will boot from the CD since I have the LiveCD, thanks for all the input guys... I'm hoping whoever had this laptop before just removed the HD and battery and nothing else...

if so there's about 10 more of these in the back...

__________________
Yes, I'm the guy who set his sniper suit on fire last halloween...

Fire/EMS of HBT.com

Desert Monkey

Recipes 

If you really want to have some fun - old printer mother boards had HD's on them that fit into a laptop sometimes. Not sure what kind of hardware graveyard you are sitting in, but an old HD might be just lying around with the right kind of looking....

__________________
"Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence"

—General Jack D. Ripper

Homercidal

Recipes 

An older Dell might not be able to boot from USB, but I'd look for good cheap used HD and use that. If you can boot to USB you can maybe run an OS from there. If not, you are screwed (unless you boot live CD from CD ROM). Frankly, I think running like that is merely an exercise in possibility, with no real practical purpose other than to test the computer to see if it's worth putting a HDD in.

Check Ebay for cheap 2.5" drives. They are practically free.

BigNick73

Recipes 

If it'll boot from the cd it'll run a live distro regardless of if theres a hard drive in there or not. I made SWMBO use one for a couple months once since she wouldn't fess up to dropping her laptop and frying the drive (third time). (she later admitted to it falling off the bed)

__________________
Primary: Empty
Secondary: Empty
Conditioning: Chocolate Cherry Sweet Stout,Trappist Dubbel, Blonde
Drinking: Irish Red

chachi

Recipes 

yeah, just run it from a live cd. Won't be the fastest thing on earth, but it doesn't sound like that is going to matter.

__________________
Primary 1: Soaking
Primary 2: Empty
Secondary 1: Empty
Secondary 2: Empty
Keg 1: "Wing Ding" Bohemian Lager
Keg 2: Empty
Keg 3: Empty
Keg 4: Empty
On Deck: Diapers and sleep

nealf

Recipes 

Yeah shouldn't be a problem booting from CDROM (change settings in BIOS) and that should load up your USB drivers so you can access the external HDD.

keiths

Recipes 

If you want a HD I have all kinds of used laptop HD,s just collecting dust You pay for the shipping and its free!!!!! Some out of dells ,MCP ( Micron) Gateway.

brauhaus

Recipes 

Keiths, check your PMs

__________________
Yes, I'm the guy who set his sniper suit on fire last halloween...

Fire/EMS of HBT.com