disk drive blues

The disk drive in my laptop whent out convieniantly at the same time I needed to renew my anti virus and spysweeper. I bought the programs not knowing that I was unable to install them and can't return them.

I was told that the easiest option was to purchase an external disk drive. however that seems to also be the most expensive option. I was going to get the geek squad guy to tell me what I needed to hook my laptop to my desk top and transfer the programs, but he was insistant on selling me an external disk drive and wouldn't give me the info. I also asked him how to transfer the programs onto a flash drive but once again he was only interested in making a sale.

I was wonding if either one of those were possible options for getting some protection on my laptop.

thanx!

P.S. sorry if this is in the wrong forum. there wasn't exactly a section for disk drive not working - software-computer connection.

 

If you have access to another computer you could create an .iso image of the disk(s) and load the image(s) onto a flash drive . You would need appropriate software on both your laptop and the borrowed machine to create the file and then to mount the image on a virtual drive on your laptop . PowerISO springs to mind , but there are many other programs that will do the job . Unless the license on your software is for multiple machines you should only use this utility to instal on one computer so as not to invalidate your key .

 

But an adapter ($5) to connect your laptop drive to a desktop IDE connection and recover your setup files that way.

Or, use a bootable OS (Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc.) or something like UBCD4Win to transfer the files to a flash drive.

 

thank guys I will try those ideas!