Booting a laptop from a USB hard drive
By Alexis • Aug 27th, 2010 • Category: Laptops, Mobile Computer News
- Photo: Duane Storey / Flickr
You do know that you can boot from a USB drive, right? No? Well, once this guide is done, you will know that you can boot from a USB drive and we’ll go one further by telling you how to do it, too.
What does this entail?
Booting from a USB drive is effectively running your computer off of the OS stored on an external hard drive. When you boot up normally, so to speak, what you do is boot up from the OS stored on your hard drive. Having a USB boot gives you the advantage of allowing you to carry a backup and even a different OS. It also acts a boot for the many laptops and netbooks that ship without disk drives nowadays. In the past it used to be exceptionally complex to perform this install, but below is our simple way to install Windows 7 and other OSes to a drive.
Step 1: Make your drive bootable by installing necessary OS
Microsoft has identified that more and more of the company’s users don’t have disk drives, and have thus developed this easy-to-use Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (there’s a Vista alternative, too). Follow the instructions to install the Windows 7 ISO file to an appropriate USB drive with at least 4GB of space. We recommend you use a USB hard drive, and not a USB flash stick for this purpose. Once installed, unplug your bootable USB drive. (For other operating systems, merely installing an OS to a bootable USB drive is a task itself covered thoroughly over here).
Step 2: Change your BIOS boot order so USB drive comes up first
Now you have to change the order in which your BIOS boots. If it boots via hard drive by default, your computer will completely ignore the option to boot via USB, even if you’ve followed the instructions in step one. When you start up, hitting either del or F2 repeatedly once prompted will take you into the setup menu. This is where you change your Boot order by going to the ‘Boot’ tab listed on your startup screen, and toggling your order to have removable devices come up before your hard drive. The process is straightforward enough once in the setup screen, but if you struggle with finding your way, this lengthy tutorial goes at pains to explain the process. Once that process is complete, shut down your computer.
Step 3: Booting from drive
Now plug in your bootable USB drive while your computer is still off. Start up the computer and wait for the prompt that will let you boot up from an external USB device. The most common message is ‘Press any key to boot from an external drive’. If you press nothing, your computer will boot from whatever is next on your BIOS order – most likely your hard drive.
Viola! The process is difficult to grasp if you don’t follow every step carefully and if you’re not comfortable working in intimidating ‘system screens’. But, in actuality, the performing of the task is simple and straightforward.
Tags for this article: windows 7, external hard drive
