topic Booting from an external CD drive in PCs & Accessories

Booting from an external CD drive

HAL — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 19:21:12 GMT

I have a vgn-A115b (out of warrenty) and recently the motor in the cd drive has stopped working, as I use it daily and might not be able to afford a repair, I'm thinking that I'll probably buy an external (USB2) DVD-RW drive however will I be able to boot from it?

Will I be able to boot from a 3rd party external drive? or just a sony one? or any at all?

Finally, can anyone hazard a guess at how much a repair for something like this would cost?

Re: Booting from an external CD drive

William — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:23:02 GMT

Traditionally Sony Laptops will only boot from a Sony PCGA-UFD5 Floppy Drive.

Older models which had specific external CD Drives were I believe not USB.

As to the cost of a repair have you considered Ebay for a replacement drive?

Re: Booting from an external CD drive

William — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:46:56 GMT

I guess from your post that the drive is not a removeable caddy type?

Re: Booting from an external CD drive

HAL — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:58:06 GMT

How would I go about finding what model/type I need and is it easy to fit?

I've built loads of pc's but taking appart a laptop sounds a little scary.

Re: Booting from an external CD drive

HAL — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 21:28:12 GMT

no,

that's really annoying, looking at ebay prices and a few other places looks like that floppy drive would set me back about £20, add the £50 for an external dvd drive, I'm not sure it's really worth the hassle.

but getting it repaired would be a total pain,

hmmm