Boot Vista Ultimate USB/CD

[q-live]

I have a laptop that i need to put vista ultimate on but it only have a cd drive and i have a portable dvd usb drive..... I updated the bios to the newest version and there is no bootable from usb selection on there. I want a clean install not a upgrade so can anyone help me on how to get a bootable vista cd that will let me then see the usb dvd as the e: drive where i can install it????? or something like that.

[Celeste]

Phew!
That is a big one .

Is your SATA drive set to your first boot drive in the BIOS after the CD/DVD drive?

Did you activate SMART

Another trick you may want to try is hitting Shift-F10 during setup to find Vista's hidden menues.

If all else fails try to get your hands on an external dvd rom.

If you do not hve any success with the above , don't give up, I will find something else.

[theuedimaster]

Since you don't have a usb bootable option in your bios, I would find a friend who has a laptop that has a dvd drive. Then take out his dvd drive and switch it with your cd drive for a day. This is fairly easy to do, and the process usually only requires you to take out a couple of screws. That's the only solution I can think of other than returning your vista dvd and buying the cd version.

[zackbloom]

Theres an insert in the vista box that allows you to call microsoft and get cd's of vista.

[wh666-666]

Probably for an extra cost though ... just buy a internal dvd rw drive to replace cd drive ... very easy to do

[zackbloom]

Yea, you do have to pay shipping: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx.