The average user of a personal computer is accustomed to perceiving this device as something whole. It happens that there are problems with the equipment or one of the components simply fails. But there are options in which specific components are simply absent. For example, you can successfully work on a computer without a hard drive.
Necessary
- - "flash drive", CD-disk or DVD-disk;
- - files with the operating system image;
- - a program for recording images to removable media.
Instructions
Step 1
If there is no hard disk in the system unit, you can use one of the 3 main methods to continue working on your computer. To do this, use a USB flash drive or "flash drive", CD, DVD. There is also the 4th option - booting from a magnetic floppy disk through an appropriate floppy drive. However, this method is more suitable for those who like to experiment, since floppy disks are no longer used, and the operating system that can be installed on this medium will be tiny with a minimum set of features.
Step 2
There are a few things to keep in mind when deciding on which drive to choose. Firstly, computers with outdated equipment may not support autoloading from a USB port, which means that they simply will not find a USB flash drive, while optical drives will work with success. Secondly, the difference in the cost of products is incommensurable - disks are an order of magnitude cheaper than all USB drives.
Step 3
Any variant of work involves the preliminary creation of an image of the system and recording it on removable media. In this case, the "flash drive" or disks will become bootable. That is, these manipulations must be carried out in advance on a functioning and complete computer. In the case of a USB flash drive, it will be most convenient to use either a portable Windows OS (for example, Windows 8 Portable), or a Linux operating system (for example, Slax). If the choice fell on Windows, then the system image should be created using the UltraISO program, and when using Slax, you will need a special utility called Unetbootin.
Step 4
If you use optical discs, then the order of preliminary actions will be exactly the same as with a "flash drive": a suitable version of the operating system is recorded as an image on removable media. The main difference between a CD and a DVD is their different capacity, a DVD has much more, therefore, more complete and functional programs can be copied to it.
Step 5
To start working on a computer without a hard drive, you need to make changes to the device's initial boot order. This can be done by pressing the F8 key (in some cases F5), immediately after turning on the computer. Such a command will bring up a dialog box listing all the media from which it is possible to boot. Select the appropriate device (USB stick, CD or DVD) and press the Enter key. To boot the computer always automatically from the specified location, you will need to make changes to the BIOS: immediately after turning on the power supply, you need to hold down the Delete key to enter the menu. In the very first tab in the Boot parameter, you should change the boot order of devices, putting the necessary media in the first place. Switching between lines in the BIOS is done using the arrow keys, and the selection of components with the "+" and "-" signs on the side keyboard layout. After saving the changes made, the computer will restart itself, and the operating system will boot from the specified location. Then it will be possible to work in the normal user mode.
