Booting from Removable Media
From Info Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
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
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
The selection of "drive" and hence OS is done at POST stage and depends on type of firmware in the computer
BIOS
- usually by pressing F11 at POST stage - sometimes other keys such as F12, F8
- then select relevant device type
- then select relevant "drive"
- 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
- navigate to "Boot" tab
- select "Boot Override"
- select relevant "drive"
- followed by relevant OS, if more than one on the drive
--Rpeters13:25, 24 August 2012 (EST)
--