Booting from Removable Media

Scope

The following are now treated as removable media, in additon to the traditional Floppy & CD?DVD drives

• USB "flash/pen drives"
• USB card readers
• inbuilt SD readers
• external drives
  • HDD
  • CD/DVD/Blueray

Selecting Boot Device

1. This task has become more complicated in recent years as a result of:
   • trend towards removable media devices being set to DISABLED by default, as a counter to malware
   • increasing variety of removable media devices
   • migration to UEFI firmware, which has different procedures
2. The selection of "drive" and hence OS is done at POST stage and depends on type of firmware in the computer
3. USB card readers and flash/pen drives might appear to firmware as either
   • USB FDD or
   • USB HDD
4. depending on how the software installed to them was complied
   • no harm in trying one or the other, until boot is achieved

BIOS

• usually by pressing F11 at POST stage - sometimes other keys such as F12, F8

1. then select relevant device type
2. then select relevant "drive"
3. followed by relevant OS, if more than one on the drive

• computers earlier than about 2004 may have limited ability to boot external devices

UEFI

• usually requires entering "Setup" mode for firmware
  • usually by pressing DEL at POST stage
• doing so will require password, if one set in CMOS

1. navigate to "Boot" tab
2. select "Boot Override"
3. select relevant "drive"
4. followed by relevant OS, if more than one on the drive

--Rpeters13:25, 24 August 2012 (EST) --