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July 12th, 2009 05:00

How to make USD Drive bootable

The NEC ND-5100A DVD±RW Writer in my Dell Inspiron 5100 Laptop has died, so I can longer boot new software CD's anymore. I would like to use my HP DVD300e external USB-connected drive but my BIOS apparently does not recognise it. My BIOS is #32 which is the latest one I think.

Can anyone advise how to make my external DVD writer bootable, so I can again install new software?

Thanks in advance for all advice and comments.

14.4K Posts

July 12th, 2009 06:00

Look in your Bios and set the boot order to place the DVD drive as first. Also look for a setting to enable a USB device to be bootable.

July 12th, 2009 07:00

Hi Davet, normally I press F12 when booting and this sets up a one-time boot menu. Then you can select the drive you want to boot from. In thids case I select CD/DVD but nothing seems to happen. Is it possible that the BIOS does not recognise this USB-connected DVD300e drive? I even connected the DVD directly into the PC's USB slot without going through the USB hub but that didn't seem to help at all! Hope you've got some other ideas?

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

July 12th, 2009 07:00

If you have the latest BIOS and it doesn't support a USB boot, no.

 

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

July 12th, 2009 07:00

Unless the BIOS has a setting to allow a USB 2.0 device to boot the system, you cannot - you will need to replace the internal drive.

 

July 12th, 2009 07:00

Can I not change the BIOS?

July 14th, 2009 10:00

Since the drive is connected by USB, you may want to check your boot menu for a "boot from USB" option rather than "boot from CD/DVD".

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