Tricky installation

[shortylonglegs]

I am trying to install Ubuntu on an old computer I have that was going to be thrown away, but it is rather tricky. The CD drive is broken and it won't read disks, and the computer is too old to support booting from usb. I was thinking I would just take out the hard drive, hook it up to my laptop with a IDE/USB converter thing and install it like a permanent, persistent live disk following these directions: instructables.com (http://www.instructables.com/id/Boot-and-Run-Ubuntu-from-a-Flash-Drive/?ALLSTEPS). I was just wondering if anyone knew of a better way of doing this. I tried the gui live usb maker, but it wouldn't work with the hard drive.

[skern03]

I am trying to install Ubuntu on an old computer I have that was going to be thrown away, but it is rather tricky. The CD drive is broken and it won't read disks, and the computer is too old to support booting from usb. I was thinking I would just take out the hard drive, hook it up to my laptop with a IDE/USB converter thing and install it like a permanent, persistent live disk following these directions: instructables.com (http://www.instructables.com/id/Boot-and-Run-Ubuntu-from-a-Flash-Drive/?ALLSTEPS). I was just wondering if anyone knew of a better way of doing this. I tried the gui live usb maker, but it wouldn't work with the hard drive.

For the money, purchasing a new CD/DVD R/W drive for $25 or less is a whole lot better option. Just be sure you can change boot priority so the CD is first. Just my two cents...

Alternatively, if it has XP on it, once you put in the new drive, you MAY be able to get it working with 8.10 from Windows. There's an option that lets you install under windows as though Ubuntu is an application.