I got a new lap top for Christmas Dell Inspiron 8 mini and as you may know it doesn't have a CD drive, but I have an external CD drive to use. When I insert the Windows XP setup disk into the drive it doesn't start the setup it just show me the contents of the CD. I've tried to click on the setup icon with the file extension .exe and it won't start but jeust tell me that there is no application to run the program and i can't boot from the removable devices either. SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE.

I guess it's running Linux then.

You will have to go into the BIOS with the external drive plugged in and set it to boot from the external device.

You will also need a DOS or Windows 95/98/ME boot disk to replace the LILO boot with the DOS/Windows MBR (Master Boot Record)
fdisk /mbr at the command prompt.

If you only have an XP disk, boot into the recovery console and use fixmbr.

problem is this. since this is a external drive as default you cant boot from it. you can make a bootable flash drive or disk and then in bios give it as bootable media.that's it

Of course you can make "external" drives bootable.

A "flash drive" is an external drive!!!!!!!




Not that it matters for this thread because the OP is banned