Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

reformat hard drive with external cd drive??

by Nov 14, 2012 11:15AM PST

I have a dell inspiron 1720 laptop running Vista and it needs to be reformatted badly!! My problem is the internal cd drive doesn't work any longer, so I use an external drive for whenever I need to run a cd. How can I do a reformat using the external drive? I went into setup and changed the boot sequence, but it didn't work.
Thanks!
Patty

Discussion is locked

2 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
Answer
The Best Fix Is To Replace The Internal DVD/CD Drive
by Former Forum moderator Nov 15, 2012 4:06AM PST

Booting from an external USB drive is not available on some computers and on those computers where it is workable, you'll need to change the settings in the BIOS so it can boot from USB. (You'll need to check for the USB settings, not just the boot order. On this computer it's under "Legacy Support" in the BIOS and it must be enabled.) Unfortunately, problems frequently occur even when it will boot from USB.

Here, we always fix the DVD/CD drive first, (they're not expensive and it's an easy fix), then make it the first drive in the boot order, and install the OS..

Hope this helps.

Grif

- Collapse -
Answer
Usually about 20 something bucks to replace.
by Former Forum moderator Nov 15, 2012 4:14AM PST
Back to Computer Help forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info