Netbooks are wonderful little gadgets. They are truly like an electronic notebook, perfect for travel or quick work while away from the main desktop computer. However, anyone with a netbook will soon realize that the CD/DVD drive is woefully absent. Adding a disc drive would add bulk to the netbook, making it less portable. It would also probably drain the battery quicker (I get a phenomenal 3+ hours of battery life on my netbook). So it’s almost impossible to install software programs from a CD on to the netbook. Almost impossible.
Before I realized the crossover cable, the only option that I knew of to install CDs was to purchase a separate external CD/DVD drive. Those are upwards of $80! It didn’t seem worth it to spend so little on a netbook (they are very affordable little things) to add $80, $100 for an external drive. It was especially painful to shell out that much money to use only a few times for installing CDs, and even more painful when I realized there’s a perfectly capable CD drive sitting inside my desktop PC.
Well, thank God for the crossover cable.
Cost me $15 at Best Buy. There is a special way you must go about using it, but it’s very easy. And inexpensive!
A crossover cable looks like a typical ethernet cable, but it is wired differently, to allow for direct transmission (protocol) of data from one computer to another. The crossover cable allows your computers to instantly “see” one another and transfer data to one another.
How to Connect a Netbook and Computer With a Crossover Cable
1. Turn on the desktop computer. Open the “Network and Sharing Center” from the Control Panel. Look under “Network Discovery” to see if it is enabled (the little button to the right of it will be green; if it is grayed out, then the service is not enabled). Turn it on if it is not on. Turn on “File Sharing,” too.
2. Turn on the netbook. Do the same for the netbook as you did for the computer: go to Control Panel, then “Network and Sharing Center.” Make sure that “Network Discovery” and “File Sharing” are enabled.
3. Turn off both computers. Unplug any connected ethernet Internet connection cables.
4. Take your crossover cable. Plug the end of the crossover cable into the ethernet ports of both the netbook and the desktop PC.
5. Turn on the desktop PC and allow it to fully boot. Turn on the netbook and allow it to boot. If your firewall detects a new network connection, allow the procedure– the new network is the crossover cable connection.
6. On the netbook, go to the Control Panel, then to the Network and Sharing Center. Look to the left hand side of the window for “Tasks.” Click “View Computers and Devices.” The desktop PC should be visible in the network.
To access the CD drive, all you have to do is double-click the icon of the desktop PC, and click the CD/DVD drive. Oh, and don’t forget to insert the CD. 
WARNING
NEVER pull the crossover cable out while the computers are on. Turn off the computers first, then unplug the cable, then reboot.
In Summary
1. Enable “Network Sharing” and “File Sharing” for both the netbook and desktop PC.
2. Turn off both computers.
3. Insert the crossover cable into the ethernet ports of both computers.
4. Turn on the desktop PC.
5. Turn on the netbook.
6. Go to the netbook’s Control Panel, then to Network and Sharing Center. Go to “Tasks” and then “View Computers and Devices” to access the files and drives on the desktop PC.
7. When your work is done, turn off both computers. Remove the crossover cable from the ethernet ports.
May 5th, 2010 at 8:41 am
That’s an inexpensive way to create a two-port network.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Thanks for this. I knew there had to be a way without digging out my ancient and ropey external CD drive. Clear instructions, worked perfectly.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Hey woodzo, I’m glad you were helped! All the best.