Ubuntu with no hard drive

When my Compaq Presario's hard drive failed... I dicked around with it for a few days trying to revive the hard drive.

Then, I looked on the bright side... I guess I need to buy a new laptop. (Sweet!)

That lasted for a few days. In the back of my mind, I already knew buying a replacement hard drive would be way cheaper. So I eventually came around and bought a replacement drive from TigerDirect.

At work the next day, I finally got around to downloading Ubuntu 6.10. I had been meaning to do this for quite some time. I burned the ISO image to a CD and booted a spare box from the CD. Wow. Instant success... I was running Linux. Much easier than the last time I tried (3 years ago). The OS automatically handled necessary drivers for my network card, my video card, etc. No issues whatsoever. I was puzzled... No issues around allocation of partition space? I clicked around and finally realized Ubuntu was running directly from the CD... it hadn't installed itself.

[Begin focus to avoid explaining all about installing Ubuntu and setting up Samba]

If Ubuntu could run directly from the CDRom.... My Laptop should be able to run from a CD - right? Well... No. My CD drive was messed up and would only read DVDs... I'd had this problem for over a year, but it never really mattered to me.

Eventually I found DVD ISO images (they're on the Ubuntu website, scroll down on the download page). An overnight download (obviously on a different computer) provided me with the image, which I burned to a DVD.

Booted the laptop (with hard drive removed) from that DVD... and bingo. I'm basically fully functional from a computer standpoint.