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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