What boot device would laptop detect external USB CD/DVD drive as?

Hi MGF.

I was recently looking at an old laptop - it can boot from HDD / CD/DVD / (Nvidia Network?). I was able to boot from the CD drive.

Out of curiosity. How would the laptop see an external USB CD/DVD drive? Could it boot from it?

Thanks.

 

You have 2 options.
1. You can set the external CD/DVD drive as the first boot device in the BIOS.
2. You can select the boot device when you turn on the laptop by pressing the F11 (usually) key.

 

Hi Eldon.

Yes, I knew that. But my question is -- would the external USB CD/DVD be seen as a USB boot option by the laptop -- therefore be un-bootable from?

 

The external CD/DVD drive will be seen as a bootable device only if a CD/DVD with either a live Linux distro or a bootable program has been loaded.

I have no idea what you mean...:confused

 

Correction:
Any external CD/DVD drive (or other device) will be seen as a device if it's connected during startup. Obviously, a CD/DVD with either a live Linux distro or a bootable program must be loaded for it to function as a bootable device.

 

I mean the external CD/DVD drive is connected via a USB connection so perhaps the laptop (which has no option to boot from USB) would not detect it at bootup.

 

Thanks for the info guys.