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Fix various kinds of problems on computer disk/memory card/usb/flash

Monday, July 6, 2015

Simple Way to Boot from a Flash Drive or External Hard Drive

Need Boot from External HDD or USB Flash Drive?
Situation1: Hello, recently, for some special reasons, I do have removed the internal hard drive of my Samsung laptop and also connected another external hard drive in a USB port of this same computer. And wonder whether it is possible to boot from that plunged external drive. Honestly, this attached external drive really works well and holds nothing important. What can I do to boot from this USB hard disk? Is there any special requirement? Do you have any idea? And I am using Windows 7 OS. Thanks for any idea!

Situation2: Hey, recently, since the laptop internal hard drive seems to be seriously damages, this computer just cannot be booted well and always ask me to insert a boot CD. But, I do have no such bootable CD and only got a 64GB USB flash drive and 560GB external HDD. Is it possible to boot this computer from this external hard drive or USB flash drive? What am I supposed to do if it is possible? Thank you very much!
 
Hey, friends! It is not impossible for people to boot a computer from an USB hard drive or USB flash drive. Honestly, when it comes to booting a computer from an external storage device, it often means to open your computer with the operating system that has been stored on the external USB hard disk or flash drive well, not the commonly-used internal hard drive. In other words, to successfully run your computer from an external device, you’d better firstly install the operating system well on your storage device and also set your computer well. Furthermore, before you really start to do the actual things, there is also much prep work that needs to be done in advance.  

Prepare Everything Well in Advance:

To avoid some unexpected problems, like incompatible troubles, you’d better also prepare your external storage devices and the computer well. Here are some common requirements you can follow:
1). Prepare a compatible USB flash drive or external hard drive.
If the USB flash drive or external hard drive is not compatible with your computer, the computer often even cannot recognize it. Needlessly to say, you can smoothly open your computer with the Windows systems installed inside. Therefore, firstly check the file system of this storage device, like NTFS or FAT32, is compatible with your computer.
2). Move all important data inside this USB drive to another storage device in case of data loss.
In case of some unwanted data loss troubles, before you really start to install operating system on this thumb drive or HDD, remember to extract everything important out and also move it all to a safe drive or location, like another flash drives, hard drive or online storage.
3). Keep enough free space
Make sure your storage device have 15GB of free space at least. If it is possible, also format or clean this device well to avoid any unwanted troubles.

How to Boot from USB Storage Device on Windows Computer?

After preparing your external devices and your computer well, simply install your operating system well on this flash drive or computer and set out to set your computer well. What you are supposed to do now is only to find the computer boot menu and set the CD or USB drive as the first one on the provided list
Here are the detailed steps that you can follow:
Step1. Restart your computer as usual and press "Del" button to open the "BIOS SETUP UTILITY". (Generally, most of computer can allows you to open this computer interface. If yours is not, simply restart your computer and press "F12" instead. )
Step2. Press the "↑","↓","←" and "→" on the keyboard to highlight the "BOOT" option.
Step3. Choose your connected storage device from the popped-out boot device menu. In your case, you are often supposed to choose "Removable Device" from the list and click "Enter" button there.
Step4. Press "Esc" button to exist and also save these changes.
Step5. Reboot this computer again from the attached USB flash drive or external hard drive.

Additional Instructions:  

1). Use the computer keyboard to set your computer carefully.
When comes to the "BIOS SETUP UTILITY" interface, you are often only allowed to use the computer keyboard. Different buttons often stand for different orders. You’d better check the instructions well on the bottom of the screen.
2). Use data recovery software to recover lost data when you do forget to extract everything important out.
The external storage device often is supposed not to hold any important files, songs, videos and the likes in case that the future operation can rewrite the drive information and also make everything inside gone permanently. But, if you really store something useful there and also format this device latter, you’d better also have chances to rescue the original stuffs back with device format recovery software.
3). Consult the experts for help, if it is necessary.
From the above description, it seems not to be a difficult task. But, different computers, different conditions and even different people can lead to different actual troubles. If you really cannot handle this personally, do not be afraid to ask some experts for help, before the situation goes worse.

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