Will Ubuntu live cd/dvd work with no hard drive installed?

Solution 1:

It will work just fine. I've often used it as a tool to diagnose computers with hard drives that have quit working.

If you want to save stuff, you could plug in a thumb drive or a USB hard drive and save it to that. A thumb drive will show up just like it would on a normal Ubuntu install.

Another option if you want persistence is to make a LiveUSB drive with Ubuntu's startup disk creator and use the option to have persistence.

Solution 2:

As long as you have RAM go for it, a LiveCD does not need a hard disk or even a writable media installed to run properly.

Solution 3:

It should work fine, I've used a live CD on machines with totally broken hard drives with no problem.

If you want persistence you'll need to boot off a USB key instead of a CD.