Will a PC with a faulty hard drive work off a live DVD/CD

[ericmark]

My son is having problems with his PC not sure if hard drive or mother board. I wonder if there is a fault with a hard drive can one still boot from a Linux live CD. If so we can use that to show if hard drive or mother board faulty. Used Live CD/DVD many times but not tried on a machine with faulty hard drive.

Intermittent fault so hard to pin point.

 

[OwainDIYer]

Usually yes, and there are specialist Linux distributions for diagnostics.

You can also put distros like Puppy on a USB stick and boot and run it, saving all config files to the USB stick.

 

[otherman]

Yes, you can boot of any bootable DVD provided the boot sequence in your bios is set to check the dvd drive. Normally to see the bios settings hit delete while the pc is booting.

What problems are you having? Normally hard drive and motherboard type problems are well different from one another.

 

[opps]

the linux distro wont care a jot about the HDD.

Not all machines (BIOS) will allow booting from usb though.

If you want to see if it HDD or Mobo is faulty why not use Hiren boot cd and create a new partition- throw windozes or linux in it and then see what happens on the dual boot?

 

[ericmark]

Interesting in the idea of booting from a stick. I had not thought of that. Not really a Linux user set it up years ago when my daughter was going out with a Linux user to work with TV card and not really used it much.

So which is closest to windows and any pointers as to how to put on a stick?

I will of course now look on internet and maybe it will direct me how to do it anyway!

 

[ericmark]

I found this http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/ site and I have selected Ubuntu 9.10/10.04 Desktop i386 clicked Opted to Download the ISO and am waiting for it to complete fingers crossed.

If it all works then will take to my son for him to try. Thanks.

 

[empip]

Just made a 1GB 'USB' flash pen / thumb Boot drive for XP pro - successfully.

Used :-
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
This provides infrastructure for a pared down XP off the stick plus some useful utilities.

...Download
Latest version:
Download PE Builder v3.1.10a - self-installing package (3.15MB) - if you are unsure what you need to download, get this!...

This did the build of files required, then produced an ISO for burning CD.
The ISO is not required for the USB stick.

Had no success with the apparent usb stick boot stuff in Bart-Pe.

Nudged in right direction by this post :-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1442021

...PeToUSB - Boot BartPE From USB...

This was easy to use and worked a treat...
http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb

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