RSS Feeds: Install from CD without an Optical Drive
While this primarily applies to netbooks without optical drives, it can apply to any PC that where the optical drive is missing or broken. You can indeed install from CD without any optical drive of any kind.
Requirements
While you don't need an optical drive to install from CD, you need access to an optical drive in order to create one or more CD images. You also need the right software to create the images to begin with.
Microsoft released an unsupported utility a few years ago (and it's still available) that will let you mount a CD so that it appears as a drive. I read about it in an article, "XP: Small, Free Way to Use and Mount Images (ISO files) Without Burning Them", although I didn't test it. It appeared to require too many steps for something that should be simple.
I found a great list of "20 Free Software To Create, Mount, Burn, Edit, And Extract ISO Image Files – Something You Should Definitely Bookmark !" and one of the utilities stood out from the rest. I've already installed it on my desktop PC.
Free and Powerful Software
I have Nero Burning ROM on my PC and I plan to remove it. It was given to me so I won't feel bad about removing it. It's bloated and there isn't a remaining feature in it that I need. It also loads a bunch of stuff when I start up Windows and it's a pain in the keester to figure out which files don't need to be launched and which ones do. Now, none of them do.
I had already started using InfraRecorder for burning CDs and DVDs because it was simple to use. I could probably use it for creating images, but I don't want to mess with it. It doesn't appear to be designed for that express purpose.
I downloaded and tested Magic ISO Maker and it does what it claims to do. I can put a CD in my desktop optical drive, create an ISO image, copy it to my USB flash drive and mount it on my netbook using the same program there. I'll be ripping out the trial version of Microsoft Office 97 and installing my full copy of Microsoft Office XP (currently on CD only). The only software I will need is Magic ISO Maker.
Similar Posts:
ISO creator as well as ISO mounting (virtual disk drive) software is very useful when we want to use the same disk over and over again without risking it to scratches and other physical damages. It is also useful to run games or programs that require the original CD in the CD tray so that we don't have to change the CD every time we want to change game or application. In this regard, having virtual CDs are like having multiple CD drive trays, just make sure you have decent hard drive space.