It is increasingly common for a company to create discless systems that boot over the network. If there is an available device for booting, yet the machine is unable to recognize it, you may want to try modifying your BIOS settings and rearranging the boot order to recognize the device first.Ĭompared to booting using external storage, booting through the network is better. You will be presented with a blank screen, with a single message, and a blinking cursor. If your system runs through the list of devices in the BIOS and none are available for booting, it will simply perform a series of PC speaker beeps and inform you that no bootable devices have been found. In cases where no devices are found, your computer will let you know and will present you with a blank screen, one message, and a cursor that’s blinking. Many servers are actual ran off of a single-network device with the hardware loading an operating system into RAM memory over the network. These devices can be hard drives, network drives, external drives, or even removable media. The BIOS is loaded and the computer then looks for a boot device based upon the order of the devices in memory. This checks all of the hardware to make sure that everything is responding properly, then a series of system beeps are performed. When a computer first runs, a Power On Self Test (POST) is performed. This is why you can’t immediately use the computer as soon as you see the desktop or the screen. When a computer starts, various tests and checks are done.

When you attempt to run a computer without a hard drive, you will often be asked for a boot device. Computers can be booted over a network, through a USB drive, or even off of a CD or DVD. Believe it or not.Īlthough a hard drive is typically where an operating system is installed, there are a number of ways you can run a computer without one. This can be done through a network, USB, CD, or DVD. Really? Arguably so.Ī computer can still function without a hard drive. A computer cannot efficiently process things without a memory hardware. Hard drives have been proven a reliable technology in the computing world that’s why they are still around today and are ever-improving. There are those that have SSDs Solid State Drive as well. Most computers you see on the market today whether desktops or laptops have a hard disk drive or hard drive in short, as the main storage memory. Among these storage hardware is the HDD or the Hard Disk Drive.

And under the memory is the ROM or the Read Only Memory, the RAM or the Random Access Memory, and the cache. It is named so because all major processes happen here. Every computer has a brain called the Central Processing Unit.

Boot computer without hard drive