On Monday 30 November 2015 14:27:31 Alexandre wrote:
> ________________________________________
> De : Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@...>
> Envoyé : 30 novembre 2015 08:08
> À : trinity-users@...
> Objet : Re: [trinity-users] Hybrid Live Images
>
> On Monday 30 November 2015 13:00:26 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > On Monday 30 November 2015 12:52:16 Alexandre wrote:
> > > Just want to say that now you can buy on ebay an external USB DVD
> > > drive-burner for 15-20$.
> >
> > Great, when they work.  not everything will boot from them.
>
> The problem laptop would boot from an expensive powered USB optical drive,
> and a USB hard drive.
>
> Hi Lisi,
>
> Almost everything will boot from external USB dvd drive, except maybe if
> you're talking about launching a Win 98 install, or old Debian. The problem
> you're seeing is when the USB ports of the computer can't supply enough
> power by itself to make the drive work properly. Nowadays, most drives can
> work properly with either 1 USB port, or by adding (included with the
> drive) a second USB plug to supply more power to the drive.

Not in this case.  The BIOS wouldn't wait for something to be read.  It could 
only read off something that was already available before the BIOS looked for 
it.  So the CD/DVD had to have been spun up in advance of the laptop's being 
turned on, which meant that it had to be separately powered.  A solid state 
hard drive does not have to spin up and can be read immediately.

Lisi