USB Boot
How do I boot an USB hard disk?
Other titles for this same problem.
- My BIOS cannot boot from USB device, can Super Grub Disk help me?
README FIRST
In order to GRUB or SGD to boot a USB drive, pendrive or hard disk your BIOS computer has to offer the usb drive as a boot drive. If BIOS offers it as the first boot drive it is offering it as: hd0. If BIOS offers it as the second boot drive it is offering it as: hd1.
If your BIOS does not let you boot your pendrive with F8 or F12 keys or by setting up your BIOS hard disk boot order with F1 or SUPR keys at boot... it does not mean that it cannot offer the drive to GRUB to be booted.
In order to check if Grub is offered the usb drive you need to check the drive partitions in the:
- Choose Languague & Help
- Choose your Language
- Boot & Tools
- Show Partitions
Browse all the drives it offers you and see if hd1 or hd0 is your usb drive or not.
Even if your drive is not found there you can try to boot it with the Kernel method.
USB drive is set as hd0
If your USB drive is set as hd0 here there are the steps to boot it.
- Boot with Super Grub Disk Cdrom or Super Grub Disk Floppy.
- Choose Language & Help
- Choose your language
- Boot & Tools
- Boot Hard Disk (MBR)
- Select hd0
Your pendrive should boot.
USB drive is set as hd1
If your USB drive is set as hd1 here there are the steps to boot it.
- Boot with Super Grub Disk Cdrom or Super Grub Disk Floppy.
- Choose EASY LIVE SWAP
- Choose Language & Help
- Choose your language
- Boot & Tools
- Boot Hard Disk (MBR)
- Select hd0
Your pendrive should boot.
The Kernel method
Even if your system does offer the USB drive as another grub drive some distributions let you boot from a cdrom or a floppy that loads a kernel into memory that it can recognise your pendrive and continue the boot proccess from it. Floppy/Cdrom distribution and USB distribution must be the same one or very similar ones.
- Puppy Linux has a floppy boot disk that loads the rest of the operating system from a USB drive, CD-ROM, or internal hard drive
