The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots

[Metspitzer]

Face it, movie fans: the DVD is destined to be dead as a doornail.

Only a few Blockbuster stores are still open. Netflix's CEO says, “We
expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.”
The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film
enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-hollywood-encouraging-onine-piracy

Is that true? How are you supposed to load (change) the operating
system on new laptops if something goes wrong?

 

[John Williamson]

Face it, movie fans: the DVD is destined to be dead as a doornail.

Only a few Blockbuster stores are still open. Netflix's CEO says, “We
expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.”
The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film
enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-hollywood-encouraging-onine-piracy

Is that true? How are you supposed to load (change) the operating
system on new laptops if something goes wrong?

Use a USB connected DVD or Blu-Ray drive. All the modern Laptops I've
seen support booting from one, once you know the secret, which is in the
help files they now supply on the HD or online instead of a manual. The
advantage is that what is, in my experience, the least reliable part of
a laptop has been done away with and replaced by an easy to change or
upgrade external option.

If you are on the road and a one box option is essential, then modern
laptops have enough HD space to store many films and weeks of music.

 

[rfdjr1]

Use a USB connected DVD or Blu-Ray drive. All the modern Laptops I've
seen support booting from one, once you know the secret, which is in the
help files they now supply on the HD or online instead of a manual. The
advantage is that what is, in my experience, the least reliable part of
a laptop has been done away with and replaced by an easy to change or
upgrade external option.

If you are on the road and a one box option is essential, then modern
laptops have enough HD space to store many films and weeks of music.

I bought a netbook two years ago. No CD/DVD slot. But I bought a USB connected
external drive dirt cheap on eBay. I also found that I could copy a DVD onto a
thumb drive using my desktop and then plug it into the netbook and the netbook
read everything fine form the thumb drive. Haven't tried watching movies like
that but it works for installing programs that are originally on DVD.

 

[ray]

Face it, movie fans: the DVD is destined to be dead as a doornail.

Only a few Blockbuster stores are still open. Netflix's CEO says, “We
expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.” The
latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film
enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-hollywood- encouraging-onine-piracy

Is that true? How are you supposed to load (change) the operating
system on new laptops if something goes wrong?

I've loaded Linux distributions on several netbooks via a bootable USB
flash drive - maybe some day MS will get to that point.

 

[Wolf K]

On 21/08/2012 4:12 PM, (e-mail address removed) wrote:
[...]

I bought a netbook two years ago. No CD/DVD slot. But I bought a USB connected
external drive dirt cheap on eBay. I also found that I could copy a DVD onto a
thumb drive using my desktop and then plug it into the netbook and the netbook
read everything fine form the thumb drive. Haven't tried watching movies like
that but it works for installing programs that are originally on DVD.

And USB sticks are coming down in price, on sale you can find them at 75
cents/GB or less. I just bought a 32GB drive for $25 plus tax. Enough
for a complete OS, the most used apps, and about 20GB of storage. Which
means you can borrow someone else's laptop, and run your own stuff
without affecting his/her installation. ;-)

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I've loaded Linux distributions on several netbooks via a bootable USB
flash drive - maybe some day MS will get to that point.

That someday has already come and gone - Windows 7 and 8 (and I think
Vista, but I'm not sure) can be installed from USB.

--
Zaphod

Adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly),
manic self-publicist, terrible bad at personal relationships,
often thought to be completely out to lunch.

 

[Char Jackson]

Windows 7 and Windows 8, can be installed from a USB key.

A USB optical drive, will solve a certain number of other problems.

But there will be situations, where you're going to be screwed.

Not too likely. People used to say the same thing about floppy drives
back in the mid-90's. Time marches on and technology changes. I hung
onto my floppy drives until about 1998-1999, but that was already
several years past the point where I needed them.

For example, I have a server OS install CD, that only boots from
an internal drive. And I have a Kaspersky AV scanner CD, that also
only boots from an internal drive. Those will cause problems,
in the new computing era.

I wonder why it matters to the CD whether it's running from an
internal or external drive. Fortunately, most of us aren't installing
a server OS to a laptop and there are plenty of alternatives to
Kaspersky.

 

[BillW50]

That someday has already come and gone - Windows 7 and 8 (and I think
Vista, but I'm not sure) can be installed from USB.

You can install MS-DOS 7, Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP2+, Vista, Windows 7,
and Windows 8 from an USB flash drive.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I wonder why it matters to the CD whether it's running from an
internal or external drive. Fortunately, most of us aren't installing
a server OS to a laptop and there are plenty of alternatives to
Kaspersky.

He said *boots from* an internal drive. If the CD or DVD doesn't have
appropriate drivers, it won't manage to boot on a USB connection.

 

[Char Jackson]

He said *boots from* an internal drive.

Right, but how is that a function of his server OS CD or his Kaspersky
CD? It seems to me it would be a function of the specific PC that he's
working with at the moment, and not the CD's themselves.

If the CD or DVD doesn't have
appropriate drivers, it won't manage to boot on a USB connection.

I don't think I understand that any more than I understand what Paul
was saying.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Right, but how is that a function of his server OS CD or his Kaspersky
CD? It seems to me it would be a function of the specific PC that he's
working with at the moment, and not the CD's themselves.


I don't think I understand that any more than I understand what Paul
was saying.

A bootable device or medium contains the software that boots it.

 

[Char Jackson]

A bootable device or medium contains the software that boots it.

Hmm, well, that certainly sounds impossible to me, but I suppose I'm
overlooking something.

I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that only
boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say in the
matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what he means.

 

[Paul]

I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that only
boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say in the
matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what he means.

USB plays a part in it.

If the USB subsystem does "resets" during the boot process,
an external optical can be "disconnected" while the boot process
is reading files off it. Then the boot process dies.

I didn't waste time figuring out how I could bypass the issue.
On the Kaspersky CD, it would be a waste of time, as the
environment in there is too minimal for me to repair. If
it was a full OS, I could rebuild a kernel for it. But
lots of things were removed from that CD, so it's not
a lot of fun to hack.

I used to see the same sort of behavior, years ago, in
another OS. And frankly, I was shocked, to be seeing
behaviors like this in software released in the last
couple of years. It raises the question "doesn't anybody
test this stuff ?". It's not like USB optical drives
are that obscure.

I don't keep an internal optical on that machine, because
it frees up a cable for other storage devices. The other
day, I had a total of six disks connected, but I don't
do stuff like that very often. The extra cable, came in
handy. And if I need an optical, while the six disks
are connected, I use the USB optical.

Paul

 

[Good Guy]

Face it, movie fans: the DVD is destined to be dead as a doornail.

Only a few Blockbuster stores are still open. Netflix's CEO says, “We
expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.”
The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film
enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-hollywood-encouraging-onine-piracy

Is that true? How are you supposed to load (change) the operating
system on new laptops if something goes wrong?

Actually CD/DVDs are becoming obsolete because they are limited in terms
of amount of data they can store. Also, they get damaged very easily.

USB flash drives (more than 128 GB storage space) are the technology for
the future. Microsoft will provide its operating system by way of
download links and the user need to make a flash drive to make backups
and to install on the system.

Microsoft's free tool for Windows 7 is here:

<http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool>

Also, TV programs are recorded on hard disk these days so there is no
need for the dvd player these days.

Good luck.

 

[choro]

Actually CD/DVDs are becoming obsolete because they are limited in terms
of amount of data they can store. Also, they get damaged very easily.

USB flash drives (more than 128 GB storage space) are the technology for
the future.

Yes, flash drives are the technology of the future BUT CDs and DVDs,
despite being slow, *do* provide cheap storage. I mean one can't grumble
at 10 to 15 pence or cents for nearly 5GB of storage. Where can you buy
flash sticks for that price?

BUT the main advantage of non-rewritable CDs and DVDs is the fact that
the data is non-erasable which isn't true of flashsticks.

And please don't tell me that they can be locked. For if something can
be locked it can also be unlocked... as reliable as chastity belts of
medieval times. The wives could screw at night during the knight's
absence and still be wearing her chastity belt intact (!) on her
knight's return.--
choro
*****

 

[Char Jackson]

Yes, flash drives are the technology of the future BUT CDs and DVDs,
despite being slow, *do* provide cheap storage. I mean one can't grumble
at 10 to 15 pence or cents for nearly 5GB of storage. Where can you buy
flash sticks for that price?

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

 

[Char Jackson]

USB plays a part in it.

If the USB subsystem does "resets" during the boot process,
an external optical can be "disconnected" while the boot process
is reading files off it. Then the boot process dies.

So you're thinking that something on the CD is being executed that
causes the PC's USB subsystem to do a reset?

 

[Paul]

So you're thinking that something on the CD is being executed that
causes the PC's USB subsystem to do a reset?

While it's not related to the two particular problem instances
I mentioned, try a search term like "BootBusExtender USB", which
provides a way to fix this for Windows. USB can be added to
the boot bus options, such that USB is up and running, before
other parts of the OS are loaded. Something like that. That's how
you get older Windows to run from USB storage drives. It's an
example of moving USB commissioning forward enough, so it doesn't
cause the boot media to disappear part way through the boot.

In the two cases I mentioned, it could be a missing driver. For
example, not all Kaspersky rescue disk (AV scanner) suffer from
this problem. Some of the earlier ones, worked just fine when
launched from USB optical. But like all software, if the
developers keep screwing with it, they're bound to break
something. And they did.

Even Knoppix CD/DVD distros, suffer from a variant of this.
It's pretty goofy, when an OS starts to boot from a USB optical,
then, gets part way through, and declares it "can't find the OS disc".
When it's been sucking software off it for the last 30 seconds. That
caused no end of grief. Some of those LiveCDs, in the jewel box
I keep a piece of paper, with a recipe to get them to work.
Not very friendly at all. The worst part, is guessing the syntax
of the device it should actually be reading from. You can't
"dir" or anything when it fails, and see what storage devices
are present, to make up a path to the OS. You have to "guess" at
it, and reboot over and over again as you test the guesses.
Then, write it down on a piece of paper, before you forget

Paul

 

[choro]

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

For full HD backups, yes, I agree with you. I do mine onto a 2.5" 1TB
external HD. Well actually first onto a second HD on my desktop which I
then regularly copy onto the 1TB external drive. Just in case!

Though my User Files I XXcopy onto an external drive regularly. It only
takes a couple of minutes to copy my User Files. But if you want to give
some photos to a friend or give them a copy of various pdf files or
downloads etc, they giving it to them on a CD or a DVD makes sense as it
would be too expensive to give them copies of such files on flash sticks.

I remember the days when music CDs sold in the UK for £12.99 and a blank
CD cost £16.99. Last year I bought 100 blank CDs for £8! DVDs at less
than double that price.

And surprise, surprise, guess what? You know how some cameras etc can't
recognize ultra modern SDHC and SDXC cards... The other day I went to
stick a very old SD card into one of my brand new camera and it wouldn't
recognize it. So it works both ways! Yet my computer recognized it and I
could see the photos on that very old and very low capacity SD card.

As I said, it works both ways!--
choro
*****

 

[Char Jackson]

For full HD backups, yes, I agree with you. I do mine onto a 2.5" 1TB
external HD. Well actually first onto a second HD on my desktop which I
then regularly copy onto the 1TB external drive. Just in case!

Though my User Files I XXcopy onto an external drive regularly. It only
takes a couple of minutes to copy my User Files. But if you want to give
some photos to a friend or give them a copy of various pdf files or
downloads etc, they giving it to them on a CD or a DVD makes sense as it
would be too expensive to give them copies of such files on flash sticks.

I don't think it would have occurred to me to transfer files to a
friend via CD or DVD. I'm more likely to put the files online and let
the other person retrieve them at their convenience.