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brauhaus

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I have an old Dell Laptop with no hard drive and no battery, I have the AC plug and all that fun stuff and I can plug the computer in so that it has power...

I haven't tried to push any buttons, but what's the point without a HD?

Anyway, I have an external HD and I'm wondering if I could boot the Dell from the external HD? is it possible?

If not I'm just going to cough up the $60 for a cheapy HD for the lappy and a battery... my plan is to run Ubuntu off the computer, manly for use to surf the webs and such... no need for anything like gaming or insane processing, nust need a surfer.
 
You can't boot from an external hard drive because your computer doesn't recognize a usb or firewire connection unless it has drivers installed on its own internal hard drive.
 
You can't boot from an external hard drive because your computer doesn't recognize a usb or firewire connection unless it has drivers installed on its own internal hard drive.

I'm assuming since there is no HD at all, there is no chance of this working eh? I have a LiveCD for the Ubuntu software, but I'm assuming it's useless without a HD.
 
I'm looking for any pointers guys, I have a LiveCD that I can boot from, but is this useless without an existing HD in the laptop?
 
Go into your BIOS settings. See if you can change the boot procedure so that the laptop will attempt booting off a USB port first. If your BIOS does not support this, you might be able to upgrade the BIOS so that it will.
 
alright, here is the thing, without a HD in the computer will there even be a chance to access the BIOS? I have a laptop with no hard drive, and no battery, only a power supply and CD/DVD.
 
Personally I would see if you can boot from usb devices and if not I would see if a BIOS update is available that would allow you to.

Then create an Ubuntu live USB drive, then you will have a completely portable Ubuntu system similar to BartPE for Windows users.
 
alright, here is the thing, without a HD in the computer will there even be a chance to access the BIOS? I have a laptop with no hard drive, and no battery, only a power supply and CD/DVD.


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

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.

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...
 
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....
 
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.
 
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)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
well, good news to report, the other night I found a semi-charged battery for the laptop (new in it's package, just getting tossed) so I went home and sure enough the Laptop powers up and I can run the LiveCD from hitting F12 and selecting the CD/DVD drive.

now I have to get a suitable power cord for this thing and I am golden!
 
You can't boot from an external hard drive because your computer doesn't recognize a usb or firewire connection unless it has drivers installed on its own internal hard drive.

As already said - wrong. Depending on the manufacturer I think Dell lets you hit F2 (something mentioned that too I think). Select the USB ports as bootable option before IDE and all the other crap and you are good. Leave your bios menu, hit F12 for dell, select CD/DVD-Rom and boot from cd, install OS on external hdd and you are good to go.

Have to deal with similar crap at work every day.... :cross:
 
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