Re: Can I boot my PC off of a USB thumb drive?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Steve wrote:
| Hi;
|
| I have Ubuntu 8.04 running on a 6 year old PC. I would like to make a
| bootable USB stick with Ubuntu 8.10 on it. I checked the bios on my
| computer. In the boot/boot priority section it has "removable
| devices" listed, but in that section the only removable device there
| is an old floppy drive.
|
| Does this mean I can't boot from a USB thumb drive?
|
| If so, is there anything I can do about it short of getting a new
| computer?
|
| Thanks in advance for any information.
|
| Do I need to know what kind of motherboard I have? How can I find
| that out?
|
| Thanks in advance for any info
|
| Steve

One other point that I didn't see mentioned:

When I booted my PCs (desktops and laptops, both) from USB drives
(either thumb or external rotating disc), the drive always shows up
under [hard drives] in the computer BIOS.

That is, I don't typically have to go all the way into the BIOS setup
routine - the USB devices typically show up in the list of bootable hard
drives that can be brought up at boot time - I don't recall what
keystroke it is that forces the drive selector routine in the BIOS.

In any case, yes, it's is very doable to run a machine off a USB device
- - I've been doing it for some years, and in many cases the machines do
not have internal hard drives. Live CDs with USB devices mounted as
user $HOME are pretty cool, too...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFJbHGOdl/TqJpOr7YRAsM9AJ9PDMXtKw740miHFSdBexT5vPjVAQCeMtgb
g7LOMqczFvhk1v72MitKkjs=
=fsA1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Booting problem
    ... BIOS is booting, I select which hard drive to use. ... With only the Ubuntu hard drive plugged in, ... However, with both hard drives plugged in, Ubuntu starts booting and ... SATA hard drives the BIOS goes nuts. ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: more than one distro
    ... SATA drives. ... Ubuntu Hardy puts the IDE as /dev/sda and the SATA ... If they are booted according to the bios ... Because the order of the drives are ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: installing 8.04 on sata drives prob
    ... I'm having probs installing ubuntu on a friends pc. ... Do I need to set specific parameters for the sata drives in BIOS ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: Booting problem
    ... BIOS is booting, I select which hard drive to use. ... With only the Ubuntu hard drive plugged in, ... However, with both hard drives plugged in, Ubuntu starts booting and ... SATA hard drives the BIOS goes nuts. ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: Skipped Drive Letters / USB related
    ... Plug the USB devices back in then right-click on them and in the Properties assign them other unused drive letters, like U & V for example, this will release letters D & E for other devices. ... Right click on the drives on the storage devices and assign them new letters as you want them, then to get rid of the U & V letters re-assign wanted letters to the USB devices. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.general)
Loading