Hi computer-savvy dopers and thanks in advance! First off, let me apologize for typos- I’m posting from my phone. I have a laptop with a bad hd and no longer boots. While it was still under warranty, the manufacturer demanded that I mail them the laptop so they could install a new hd. I had to pay the mailing costs. I didn’t have the money. It had Win 8.1. There is no sticker on the laptop with the Windows key. The mgs wanted me to pay them to tell me what the key was. I said no. I set it aside for awhile. I had other things to focus on. Now the laptop is out of warranty. Someone told me I can download linux (which version?) into a usb stick and run the computer from that usb stick, without a hd. How could I do this? I need step-by-step help. Thank you!
Can it be done? yes, I did it myself for a while on an old knackered laptop and it was fine if a little slow. Ubuntu 14.0 I believe, worked fine for browsing and light office work.
My advice however would be to cough-up $30-40 dollars for a new internal HDD (unless it is solid state), they are normally a very straightforward part to fit.
That done, create and run a USB drive with a live version of Linux (you can try various flavours in this way without committing to an install) and when you are happy with your chosen version you can install to the HDD and you’ll have a fully working laptop again.
This is a technique by which home-brew/DIY server appliances are often built. For example, the standard build-out of a FreeNAS Network Attached Storage device (a LAN-connected storage server) is to boot a tailored version of the FreeBSD open-source operating system from a USB-connected flash drive of 8-16 gigabytes capacity, reserving all the actual disk controller slots (such as motherboard SATA ports) for the spinning-rust disk drives that make up the storage array. (See this Recommend Hardware article.)
Seems to work just fine. If I can scratch together enough scratch to buy the hardware, I’m going to do one of these. (Multiple multi-terabyte array-rated hard drives are expensive!)
By the way - is the original hard drive physically, completely dead (doesn’t spin up/makes horrible noises/no chance at reading anything off it)? Or is it only unbootable/partly dead? If the latter, you might be able to recover the windows key from it - see method 2 here: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/easiest-way-to-recover-xp-and-vista-product-key-from-dead-or-unbootable-windows/
If the machine was built by a manufacturer with OEM system builder licensing, the key ought to be stored in the BIOS (that’s usually why there is no license key sticker)
But yeah, pretty much any linux distribution can be booted and run from USB. Puppy linux is very lightweight. Ubuntu is popular and well supported.
15 years ago I ran a firewall server using Linux on a machine with no HDD, just a floppy disk. It worked fine but it didn’t need to do a lot. Today’s flash drives are yesterday’s floppies.
It will work, but it will also eventually break.
USB flash drives are not designed the take a huge number of write cycles, and typically have only the most rudimentary wear levelling (if any). A system using a USB drive will eventually write enough stuff to things like log files and especially the swap areas that it will start to see hard media errors and then die.
How long it takes for this to happen obviously depends upon a lot of things. Enough memory to avoid any swapping will be huge help. Very simple loads that don’t have much in the way of memory needs, similarly.It may take long enough to die that you are happy with the lifetime you get. But you should plan on eventual failure in a manner you don’t expect with a HDD or proper SSD. I have seen one server live about a year like this.
You’re correct, but just a clarification …
This is probably true for any kind of practical production system for day-to-day use, but it does depend on how the system is built. Some of these Linux or Windows-based systems (like BartPE) are really CD-based systems that don’t depend on any write capability to the original media at all, and the “USB flash drive” implementation is just a port of the CD build. In these systems the fact that the USB flash drive is writeable is irrelevant and isn’t used. The read/write system disk that the OS requires is actually a virtual drive in RAM. However, such systems are mostly intended for emergency diagnostic and recovery, though some can be built up to amazing levels of functionality.
As I mentioned up-thread, that “amazing level of functionality” goes up to and includes 24/7/365 production-quality lights-out server appliances, so it’s by no means merely “emergency diagnostic and recovery.”
There is absolutely no practical limitation to an Open Source operating system configured to run off a non-writeable boot medium. For the highest performance, you’ll want fast-reading boot media, but generally a modern flash drive is plenty fast enough.
But as you noted, those cases are dedicated appliances. Both those and wolfpup’s scenarios and niche uses that actually benefit from having a small, hard-to-change boot device. For a general use OS, however, the read-only restriction on the boot drive is an annoying limitation.
You obviously haven’t lived in a world where writing anything (e.g., storing documents) to the boot device was strongly discouraged because documents were supposed to be stored on network storage, which could be backed up.
It’s a limitation only if you don’t have anyplace else to store stuff than the boot drive. And really, booting a “live CD” image off a flash drive doesn’t make the flash-disk non-writeable. It just means that the operating system itself doesn’t write its usual stuff to the boot drive. You can store data on the flash drive if you want to.
I think the real root of this “limitation” is “it’s not how it’s usually done”. For people who know only one way to do things and can’t be troubled to learn any different, yeah, it’s a limitation. It’s a limitation in their minds, but that doesn’t make it any less real or pragmatically effective. But it’s not a technical limitation.
It’s pretty simple to do:
[ol]
[li]You need access to a working computer to create the USB stick.[/li][li]Download & install unetbootin: https://unetbootin.github.io/[/li][li]Unetbootin lets you pick a Linux distribution. Select “KUbuntu”[/li][li]Do not click “disc image”.[/li][li]In the “space to preserve files” enter some amount that you have available on the USB stick, but keep in mind to reserve 2GB for the OS. Example: On a 16GB stick, you can enter up to 14GB. This will be your “hard drive” so you can store files/documents between boots.[/li][li]Select the USB stick on the bottom of the dialog and click OK.[/li][li]Insert USB stick in the broken PC and boot off the stick. [/li][/ol]
Yes, I am sure IT people love it and would prefer that all systems be built this way. For users (as I said), it is an annoying limitation.
The OP seems to be talking about a stand-alone PC at home. if that’s true then what’s doctrinally best for IT or most convenient for users given a LAN-attached corporate PC is irrelevant.
My concern is the OP sounds like a total noob user. ISTM that what he knows about Windows PCs is how to turn them on. He might be able to get a Linux distro onto a USB stick following zwede’s advice in post #12.
But what then? He’ll be looking at an utterly alien landscape with no idea what to do next.
As others mentioned this won’t work well. But if you urgently need to email something or some such I suggest looking at knoppix. It is a no-install flavor of linux that does not expect a harddrive. It takes a few minutes to boot, but will provide a “windows-like” interface, should be able to detect and use your wifi adapter, and comes with a browser(along with a bunch of other tools). The instructions can be found here - Bootable USB Key - Knoppix Documentation Wiki
As with the other suggestions upthread you will need to use UNetbootin to create a bootable knoppix usb drive.
Thank you. I’ve bought a new hard drive, and I will install it in a few days. In the meantime I need linux on a USB. Thank you for the links!
I hope you get to make one!
Thank you so much for asking this question! The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite C55, which has apparently had a lot of problems with the HD just simply not booting and the thing asking to insert a boot device. I found that out searching online when it first happened, so I knew what was going on. I was able to get into the BIOS and saw that the computer recognizes the HD, it just won’t boot. Am I actually going about this the wrong way - is there some sort of “windows boot” solution that I’m not seeing in my searching online that wouldn’t need my Windows key to get it up and running again? (I’ll still replace the HD, though, don’t trust it for a minute.)
I read your link (thanks again!) and the author said this method won’t work for a mfr-installed windows. The mfr installed mine.
Thank you, Mangetout. Since it won’t boot but the computer recognizes that the HD is in there, do you have an idea how I could get the key out of the BIOS?
I’m beginning to learn that! One helpful fellow at the mfr’s tech support was telling me to use something called HIRENS. Do you know anything about that and whether it would help me out?
Thanks! I’m only intending to get it up and running to get my windows key and transfer some files to the cloud that I need to keep. Then it will be a new HD.
Thank you very much!
And thank you very much as well!
I’m a linux noob, true. I wouldn’t have turned to the dope for assistance if I wasn’t. But I’m not a Windows noob.
And I’m a SHE.
So what specific steps do you recommend I take when I’m in that alien landscape, LSLGuy? Would you be willing to talk me through by PM once I get the computer, you know, turned on? 
There just seems to be so many options out there, and I’m not really sure which one to take. I want my windows key if I can get it. I want the current HD to work JUST a little longer. And then I’ll put in a new HD.
I’m VERY interested in finding a way, if at all possible, just to get the dang thing booted up temporarily in windows. Is it reasonable to want to find a way to just get it booted in windows first?
Thanks, y’all.
Sorry to goof up your quals and your sex. :smack: :o I’m not an ogre, really I’m not.
Sadly what I know about Linux is how to spell it; I know as little on that point as you seem to. I was mostly speaking to our Linux mavens who tend to assume that anyone who asks about Linux is already a semi-guru with it. IMO Linux as seen by Windows folks is like regexes: if you think that’s the solution to your problem, now you’ve got two problems.
Yes, it’s completely reasonable to want to get the job done totally in the familiar Windows environment. The Linux learning curve is non-trivial, and since you really only need it as a means to the simple end of recovering Windows info, it seems like a step sideways unless there’s no alternative. Here’s a couple ideas:
First things first before hunting down the above software or similar would be to remove the HD, put it in a suitable external enclosure, and connect it via USB to another PC running the same version of Windows. If you can browse the disk contents & successfully open a decent sample of files then you know the HD hardware, MBR, and partition info is good. You also know NTFS is still good, as is most of the data.
If you can’t get the other PC to recognize the drive, or you see massive file & directory damage, you’re probably screwed before you begin.
The good news about this step is it’s pretty cheap, fairly simple, and doesn’t have a lot of rabbit trails. Once you know you have good recoverable data it’s time to work on the rest of the process.
Depending on how much you trust the HD, it would be wise to copy all your data files off to the other PC first before messing with trying to resurrect the Windows install. When pulling the files, also get your favorites and any config files that are associated with other apps, e.g. Chrome’s favorites.
it’s also worth taking a copy of your user’s and the all user’s Start menu. Not that you can use the shortcuts directly on the new HD; you can’t. But rather that’s a pretty good catalog of all the software installed on the old HD. So it can help you know what you need to find & reinstall on the new HD.
Once your data files are safe, now we’re just trying to salvage your Windows key. I’m assuming you have install media. If you have, say a Dell PC, the license key won’t work with any old Windows install disk you might be able to “find” on the net.
Here are some tools that may help you recover the Win key.
There are older version Windows OS-lite tools that could boot from CD/USB & run with no HD. e.g. BartPE - Wikipedia
ArseNal’s post you cite includes a link to some older tools that can read & decode the Windows registry of a non-running install to recover activation keys.
Both BartPE & ArseNal’s tools may not work on your Windows version, but some googling may turn up newer equivalent tools. It’s been a few years since I had to do this stuff.
Beyond that I’ve got no advice. Good luck. Keep us posted on your eventual solution. If you get stymied come back and we’ll be glad to offer more thoughts. Or at least sympathy.
Apparently HirensBootCD will do it. Heres’s a starting point:
https://itsolutionsblog.net/3-ways-to-extract-the-windows-8-product-key/
Are you set on installing linux or would you want to go back to windows? Because after the mention of the key possibly being in the BIOS, I poked around and it seems that on machines where windows 8 was pre-loaded by the manufacturer, the key is always in the UEFI firmware apparently. And furthermore, if you just re-install windows 8.1 (on a new HD) it will simply read the key from UEFI during installation and it should just work in theory.
More info here: Windows 8.1 Product Key: How to Get it from the BIOS | PCsteps.com
Sure. Do it all the time. Don’t use Ubuntu, though. Use a Linux designed for running from USB, like Puppy Linux. Ubuntu will trash your USB drive by writing to it too many times.