Pages

Master Coder

Hacking News , Cyber Crime , Ethical Hacking , CCNA, Seo , Google Adsense , Web Development ,

How Do I Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive?

05:13    
Booting from a portable flash drive is a way to bypass the operating system and run your computer from the software and files on a USB drive. This is a handy thing to have ready in case you get a virus or your hard drive crashes.

  1. Download a Formatting Tool for a USB Flash Drive

    • If you know what you're doing, you may be able to format the USB flash drive without a tool, but a tool is an easy way to make sure you don't miss something. Suggestions for tools include the HP USB Flash Drive Format Tool from ThePCSpy.com and Lexar's BootIt from Pendrive Apps. If you want to run an operating system other than Windows, you will need to find a different tool compatible with the operating system of your choice.

    Run the Format Tool

    • Make sure your USB drive is either empty of data or contains nothing that you need. Formatting the drive removes all files, so make a copy of anything you need and put it on a disc or drive. Run the formatting tool to format the USB drive. Set it up with one partition and choose NTFS for the file system if it asks you.

    Make the USB Drive Bootable

    • Put the Windows operating system disc in the CD/DVD drive of your computer. Using the formatting tool, select an option to create a boot sector or bootable drive on the USB drive.Use the Windows "bootsect" utility to do this. Then you need to copy the files from the Windows CD to the flash drive.

    Change the Computer's BIOS

    • The BIOS is the part of your computer that tells it what to do when it first turns on, even before it starts running the operating system. Consult the manual or documentation that came with your computer to find out how to access and change the BIOS. Generally, you have to reboot the computer and hold down a key or sequence of keys. Once you are in the BIOS, change the boot device settings so that the computer will check for a bootable USB before it boots from the hard drive. Make sure it still has the secondary option of booting from the hard disk if the flash drive isn't installed--unless you never want it to boot from the hard disk again.