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using the iso bootable media without an integral disk reader/ player?

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I've been using TI in various versions for a long time now, on a desktop and 2 laptops:  all have integral (within the main chassis of the PC) disk burner/players.  The bootable media disks (eg for TI and Disk Director) created from the .iso image has been an essential part of that - recoveries, but mostly disk upgrades of various sorts, to recover the data after whatever change was needed.  And it worked fabulously.

But the need for a new laptop is apparent, and it seems that integral disk burner/players are not a common feature of laptops these days.  So how does the bootable media work with such a mal-equipped PC?

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David, most laptops bought today do not come with integral CD/DVD drives - my own new HP laptop is exactly the same.

The options open to you are as follows:

1.  Buy an external USB 3 CD/DVD drive to use for booting if needed.

2.  Use the option to burn your Acronis Rescue Media on a USB stick (2GB up to 32GB size) and boot from that stick.

Option 2. is my preferred method and has been for some years, even on systems with integral optical drives.  USB is more widely acceptible as a boot medium than CD/DVD, plus is more flexible in terms of being able to be updated easily or added to etc.

I do have an external USB 2 CD/DVD drive that I bought some years back when I got my first Samsung NC10 notebook with no such drive, and I have used it occasionally for burning a CD or DVD.  My son has a USB 3 drive which he uses for copying his CD's to iTunes then sync'ing to his iPod!  Some USB 3 drives also can use USB C ports by virtue of having 2 connectors on the end of the cable.

USB sticks are definitely the way to go. I have 2 USB drives, a USB 2 DVD burner and a USB Blu-ray burner. Have not used either for some years. 

Ian

Thanks for the advice, but it wasn't really what I wanted when I asked how this would work.  To clarify:

- to boot from the built-in CD requires a BIOS setting, a boot sequence of 1) CD, then 2) HDD, and maybe 3) something else; if there's nothing in the CD drive then the normal boot from HDD occurs. The laptop that needs replacing has only 2 options 1.CD/DVD ROM drive, and 2. notebook Hard drive

- with no built-in CD, accessing an external CD drive or even a USB memory stick via a usb port requires a chain of (different) drivers.  How does the BIOS work with a bootable image on an external usb CD drive, or a usb memory stick?  Given that there are usually 2 or 3 usb sockets on a laptop and some sort of port scan must be involved?

-  what new settings exist on diskless laptops, and how to use them to get this bootable disk image feature working on a USB device?

 

Further on this, I've always had the notify me box below the comments panel ticked when replies are made, but I have never ever received one (email).  Just learned to manually come back and check.  Does this 'notify' feature actually work, or is there a setting missing?  (to login requires an email address, and that's the also one Acronis uses for promotions updates etc, so an email addressed thus does actually arrive).

David, when you have a laptop etc with no inbuilt CD/DVD drive, then all you normally need to do is to connect a USB device (CD/DVD or USB drive etc) prior to booting the computer, so that the BIOS picks up the added device, then go into the BIOS settings to select it as first device, or else use the Boot Override key if one is available and choose the device from that boot menu.

This is how I do it on my own laptops in the same situation.

With regards to notifications of updates, click on 'My Account' at the top right of the forum pages and check that you have elected to get such notices in your account settings.  You will need to first click on the Edit Profile button then scroll down to see the options, finally click on the Save button if you make any changes.

Ah.  Silly me, assumed that 'tick' the notify me box at the bottom of the comment page was all that was needed.  Found 2 more of those in the my account page, one ticked, needed to tick the other one and did.  Confusing to have several of these scattered thru the forum detail.