New Laptop, no CD/DVD Drive

[Roger Scramjet]

Hi all
Just purchased a 10" netbook (ASUS eee pc 1000h running XP) with no inbuilt cd/dvd drive. In order to load in my programs (office, photoshop etc) do I need to get an external drive or can I insert the disc into the old laptop and "right click" copy the cd onto a usb stick:confused:
Cheers
Rog

[Bushfiva]

A bazillion options. Perhaps share the drive over a network. Or borrow/buy an external drive (they're really cheap), or install a virtual DVD drive (free) and rip to an ISO image, then install...

But copying onto a USB stick should work for most things. Make sure the stick is way, way bigger than the original disk if you're copying some MS stuff.

In other words, try it and see. You could have done it by now :-)

[twiggs]

Copying to the USB stick will work fine for installation of programs or drivers.
I have the same netbook except it is the 1000 with 40GB SSD.

[Roger Scramjet]

Thanks for the prompt replies - have ordered a 16gb usb stick on ebay so hopefully that should cope with a few at a time.....
Cheers

[twiggs]

Don't forget the Eeepc has an SD card slot so copying to an SD card is also an option.

[Lew747]

I'm interested in these subcompact notebooks! Is it actually possible to install programs such as Office/ Photoshop etc whilst still retaining their full functionality? I believe the Advent 4211 is the most powerful version on the market at the moment. 1.6 Ghz processor, what would running a program such as Flightsim 2004/ FSX be like? (If it was possible at all!?)

[boeingbus2002]

What about for watching movies from DVDs? Carrying an external DVD drive is possible but cumbersome. Would copying a dvd onto SD or USB be a feasbile option? Is it easy?
Would be great for the old folks...very easy to use interface, has many of the simple options they need, WP, internet, just to have something for "entertainment" too would be a bonus.

[Saab Dastard]

What about for watching movies from DVDs? Carrying an external DVD drive is possible but cumbersome. Would copying a dvd onto SD or USB be a feasbile option?

Probably not, owing to copyright protection.

SD

[Bushfiva]

Oooh, SD's telling porkies :-)

[Saab Dastard]

Bushfiva,

I'm not sure what your point is.

In most countries it is a breach of copyright to copy film DVDs for any purpose whatsoever.

The film studios also make it as physically difficult as they can to actually do so at both hardware and software (OS) level.

SD

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I don't buy laptops with built in optical drives, as I like smaller and lighter laptops than that.

To load software onto the new laptop I simply plug the new laptop into the home network and stick the DVD into a drive on a desktop somewhere. Obviously it doesn't then autoload (on the laptop), you have to navigate to it and click on setup.exe or whatever.

In theory software could detect that you weren't using a real local DVD and refuse to install, suspecting piracy, but in fact that has never happened to me yet.

[sthaussiepilot]

Just by an external dvd drive....

We have a Dell with no DVD/CD drives, so they gave us a USB connection to an external DVD drive works a charm:ok:

[Saab Dastard]

Its not illegal to make a backup of a film or DVD that you legally own, nor is it illegal (in my country anyway according to a court ruling) to make a backup of a rental DVD.

As I said, in MOST countries it IS a breach of copyright to make a copy of a film on DVD, for whatever purpose. This is not opinion, it is fact - however unfair, unreasonable or perverse it may appear (as it does to me in the context of fair personal use).

There are a few more enlightened jurisdictions - such as yours - where a more reasonable view is taken. Hopefully sense will prevail in time.

SD

[Feline]

Most memory sticks are formatted using FAT32 - and I seem to recall that FAT32 can only handle a maximum file size of 4Gb - so if your movie is bigger than that - you may have a problem.
You could reformat the stick using NTSF (which removes the 4Gb limit) but NTSF is not recommended for flash memory as it is a journalling operating system - which means that it writes to the stick all the time - not a good idea when using flash memory because it does actually wear out sometime