Originally Posted by
Tummy
Wow, you missed one of the big features of the MBA called Air Disc. You basically are able to share the disc drive from another PC or Mac over the network. The MBA will even be able to boot off of these network drives, to reinstall the OS for example.
http://www.apple.com/macbookair/wireless.html
If the drive were wiped clean, the MBA would still be able to boot from a shared disc over the network. No need to pull it out and connect it to another computer. It's on page 46:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Mac...sers_Guide.pdf
I think it is also possible to boot from a USB thumbdrive, but I haven't tried it.
Now if you don't have another computer's disc drive or the optional external SuperDrive, you're SOL just like your VAIO.
Oh... one other thing, a hardware diagnostic program called "Apple Hardware Test" is "built in" the firmware (EFI). Just restart and hold down the D button and it will startup.
Sorry, the way I read that page is that you can install another OS, but from within Mac OS only. Also, Walter Mossberg's review seems to indicate also that if you want to install Windows, for example, you would need to have the $99 super drive.
There is no magical way to automagically access shared network drives without any OS, unless Apple has some how defeated network protocols and come up with its own BIOS version of network detection and sharing via wifi (highly doubtful).
If the MBA hard drive is wiped clean, there would be no OS to handle network connections and sharing, so how could the MBA access shared network connections? Unless there was a hidden partition that runs an emergency OS with network connections, that would be impossible.