Alienware: Reinstall from CD/DVDRW?

[josbd]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS]Hey all. Probably a stupid question, but here is the background:

I bought the Alienware X51 R1 when it first came out, and it has been a brilliant little machine ever since. The only thing which went down was the cd/dvdrw and that was no problem as I was more than happy to use an external drive.

Last week, however, the hard drive died, so I have replaced it with a new one. Now of course, I need to install windows. and having no cd/dvdrw drive in the X51, I am wondering how to do this, as having ensured the machine is set to boot from the external cd/dvdrw, it simply won't! (I have a win 7 disk in the external drive).

If anyone has any thoughts/suggestions, I would be very grateful![/FONT]

 

[Cycloid Torus]

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-install-windows-7-from-usb-2626264

"USB Storage Device — Insert the memory device into a USB connector and restart the computer. When F12 Boot Options appears in the lower-right corner of the screen, press . The BIOS detects the device and adds the USB flash option to the boot menu. NOTE: To boot to a USB device, the device must be bootable. To ensure that your device is bootable, check the device documentation." from http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/alienware-x51/manuals

OR, you could provide power to a full size optical drive from a spare PSU and connect the optical drive to a SATA port.

 

[josbd]

Wow! Thanks for the swift response. This sounds like great advice, and I'd better go buy a usb drive. Thank you!