Install without hard drive

[ibexslam]

I've been reading about how, when attempting to install Mint to a usb flash drive or hard drive, it's best to have the main hard drive disconnected.

I happen to have an empty 4 gig flash drive and a spare older computer with a CD drive and NO hard drive in it. So, I'm thinking about slapping a Mint CD in that thing, installing the OS to the flash drive, and booting from there. (I'm pretty sure the BIOs will let me boot from a usb device).

The question is, o ye who are wise in the ways of hardware, how do I get the CD drive to open up for me?

[Husse]

I don't understand your question.... There should be no problems with the CD drive...
You may have to change boot sequence when you don't want to boot from the CD drive.
A computer older than say five years may not boot from USB.

[ibexslam]

Turns out that turning on the machine and pushing the CD drive button opens it. Duh. I had assumed, before trying, that the computer would be totally dead to the world. Shows you what I know. This is why I tell people around here "I'm NOT the computer guy." They think I am that because I wear glasses.

Anyway, next problem. Booting. I went into the BIOS (which isn't nearly as scary as it sounds, fellow noobs.) Selected CDROM for both first and second boot locations.

Restarted with CD in drive, started the boot sequence, then this:

Boot failure
Reboot and select proper boot device
or insert boot media in
selected boot device

So, no go. Any ideas?

Thanks!

I.

[linuxviolin]

If your BIOS is OK with the CDROM in first boot device and if the PC does not detect your CD, maybe the CD is bad. Do you have try burning another CD?
Maybe also your ISO file of Cassandra was broken, did you check the MD5?

[ibexslam]

I tried a couple of CD's, the iso's of which did check out OK.

More than likely the problem's the CD drive. It was a little flaky before that computer's hard drive melted. Maybe I can get it to run one more time if I can run a cleaning disk in it for a bit.

I.