New Tower with no DVD drive bay

mojo53 · 22 Oct 2020

Hi Guys

Just had a new custom tower built and overlooked the fact there was no DVD/Optical drive bay to fit a DVD drive which is not a major factor as it is one of those items that does not get a lot use, BUT if i need to boot from a rescue disk which i prefer, will a portable USB / DVD drive show up in my boot menu as 1st choice to boot from or is there some trickery involved to do so, as i do not own a USB/DVD drive and will have to purchase one if required.
The tower case concerned is a Corsair Carbide 275Q Black Mid Tower Case

Cheers

OldNavyGuy · 22 Oct 2020

There should be a function key (such as F12) where you can select from a menu which device to boot from.

It will show up in the boot menu, but not as "first choice".

That's determined by the boot order set in the BIOS.

Barman58 · 22 Oct 2020

Personally I've not used a DVD to boot from for installation or recovery for a number of years. The USB Pen Drive, (or whatever it's called these days ), has taken over, this is partially due to the fact that some installs now need more than the maximum capacity of the DVD media whereas a 16GB USB pen Drive is a standard "small" device and of course can be set to be the default first device for Boot, (not a good idea to leave this as default as there is always a chance however small that an unwanted malware load may be present)

thomaseg1 · 22 Oct 2020

external dvd are pretty cheap.
Convert the dvd to iso with something like DVD to ISO

convert to usb drive with something like rufus Rufus - The Official Website (Download, New Releases)

Fabler2 · 22 Oct 2020

Agree with Barman58. The DVD is going the same way that the cassette went loading on a zx spectrum.

mojo53 · 22 Oct 2020

Thanks for the reply's guys plenty of idea's there, save me buying something i don't need

Barman58 · 22 Oct 2020

As I deal with other people, my Clients etc, I do own a portable device capable of reading optical media , in my case a portable Blue Ray writer, but find I rarely use it, it's justified as a business expense, and a basic portable DVD could be useful depending on if you have archived material on DVD or CD, This includes your own content and also purchased or free media from others. It is useful if you have older software that came on optical media. you have to consider the data you need to access, Until recently I still had access to a 3.5 Floppy disk drive.

zbook · 22 Oct 2020

These are common BIOS boot menu hot keys:
List of PC brands with their corresponding hot-keys

OldNavyGuy · 22 Oct 2020

OP said it was a custom build -

mojo53 said:

Just had a new custom tower built

jimbo45 · 22 Oct 2020

Hi there
Although I have a DVD drive bay on an old desktop computer - I used a molex power converter and splitter to fit two SSD's instead - plenty of SATA slots on Mobo so it was only a question of getting the power to the SSD's !!

I still have an old external Samsung DVD writer (USB) if I need one (rarely) - very occasionally I find some cheap DVD's of old classic TV programs in charity shops etc and use slysoft AnyDVD to rip these to isos which I then store on the computers HDD's.

Even with Netflix and Amazon I find increasingly modern TV programs are so much junk - a lot of the classic series are brilliant. Most modern productions seem to be shot in the dark or at night, and have very poor audio apart from overloud special effects - plus the storylines aren't that great. Where are all the good script writers these days !!! .

It's not me getting older I'm sure -- because I was quite young when some of those old series were on and I enjoyed then back then.

Optical media will soon go "the way of the Dodo" - DVD's and CD's just don't have the warmth and feel of say Vinyl !!

Cheers
jimbo