BIOS setup to boot from a USB flash drive

BIOS setup to boot from a USB flash drive

You have a bootable USB stick with the OS layout and you want to do the installation yourself, but when you insert the USB stick into your computer, you find that it won't boot. This indicates the need for proper settings in the BIOS, because it is with it that the hardware configuration of the computer begins. It makes sense to figure out how to properly configure the operating system to boot from this particular storage device.

How to configure booting from a USB flash drive to BIOS

First, let's find out how to enter the BIOS. As you know, the BIOS is located on the motherboard and on each computer it differs in version and manufacturer. Therefore, there is no single key to enter. The most used are Delete , F2 , F8 o F1 . Read more about this in our article.

Read more: How to enter BIOS on a computer

After entering the menu, all that is left is to make the appropriate adjustments. Its design is different in different versions, so let's take a closer look at some examples from popular manufacturers.

Grant

Setting up booting from a USB flash drive in Award BIOS is easy. You need to carefully follow simple instructions and everything will work out:

    1. You immediately get to the main menu, here you need to go to "Integrated peripherals" .
    1. Navigate through the list using the arrows on your keyboard. Here you need to make sure that both "USB driver" y "USB 2.0 driver" are set to "Activated" . If this is not the case, configure the necessary parameters, save them by pressing the key "F10" and exit to the main menu.
    2. Go to "Advanced BIOS Features" to further configure the startup priority.
    3. Move again with the arrows and select "Boot Priority Hard Disk" .
    4. Use the corresponding buttons to place the connected USB flash drive at the top of the list. Typically, USB devices are labeled as "USB-HDD" and the name of the medium is indicated next to it.
  1. Return to main menu with all settings saved. Restart your computer, now the flash drive will boot first.

WHICH

In AMI BIOS, the setup process is slightly different, but it is still simple and requires no additional knowledge or skills from the . You must do the following:

  1. The main menu is divided into several tabs. First of all, you need to check the correct operation of the connected flash drive. To do this, go to "Advanced" .
  2. Here select «USB configuration» .
  3. Look for the line "USB driver" here and check that the status is set to "Activated" . Note that on some computers, after typing "USB" , it is also written "2.0" , this is the required connector of a different version. Save the settings and exit to the main menu.
  4. Go to the tab "Start" .
  5. Select "Hard drives" .
  6. Use the arrow keys to scroll to the line "1st Drive" and select the required USB device from the pop-up menu.
  7. Now you can go to the main menu, just to save the settings. After that, restart your computer, it will start booting from the USB flash drive.

Other versions

The algorithm for working with BIOS for other versions of motherboards is similar:

  1. Run BIOS first.
  2. Then find the menu with devices.
  3. After that, enable the item "Enable" on the USB controller;
  4. Select your flash drive name in boot device order.

If adjustments are made, but loading from the middle does not work, then the following reasons are possible:

  1. The bootable USB flash drive is not spelled correctly. When the computer is on, the drive is being accessed (the cursor is flashing in the upper left of the screen) or the error appears "NTLDR missing" .
  2. Problems with the USB connector. In this case, connect your USB flash drive to another outlet.
  3. The BIOS settings are incorrect. And the main reason is that the USB controller is disabled. Also, older BIOS versions do not booting from flash drives. In such situation, you need to update your BIOS firmware (version).

For more information on what to do if the BIOS refuses to see removable media, read our tutorial on this topic.

Read more: What to do if the BIOS does not see the bootable USB flash drive

You may have incorrectly configured the USB drive to install the operating system. Just in case, check all your actions according to our instructions.

Read more: Instructions to create a bootable USB flash drive in Windows

And these instructions will be useful if you are burning an image not from Windows, but from another operating system.

Read more:
How to create a bootable USB flash drive with Ubuntu How to create a drive
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How to create a bootable USB flash drive with Mac OS
How to create a multi-boot flash drive

And don't forget to return the settings to their original state after you don't need to from the bootable USB flash drive.

If you cannot complete the BIOS setup, simply go to "Start Menu" when the system starts. On almost all devices, different keys are responsible for this, so read the footnote at the bottom of the screen, it is usually indicated there. After the window opens, select the required device to . In our case, this is a USB with a specific name.

We hope our article has helped you understand all the intricacies of BIOS setup for booting from a USB flash drive. Today we examine in detail the implementation of all the necessary actions in the BIOS of the two most popular manufacturers, and we also leave instructions for s who use computers with other versions of BIOS installed.

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