It is very likely that at some point in your life you will have to boot your computer from an external drive, either because your device is presenting some kind of inconvenience or you need to install an operating system from scratch . Then, you will need to do this, either from a USB or CD , the good thing is that you can do this easily and quickly.
You have to keep in mind that one of the easiest ways to install or test any operating system on your computer is to start it via USB or CD. Also, it is important to know that every time that the computer is turned on the operating system that you already have installed starts correctly. Therefore, if it is presenting a problem or the device has been formatted, it can be booted through the CD or USB but it will not be as simple as entering the unit into the device and ready, for this A few steps are required, which we will explain later.
In order to carry out this process it is necessary to follow a series of instructions which are responsible for guiding us to be able to do this successfully. That is why we will explain how to boot your computer from USB or CD through the following methods.
Index:
Steps to configure a BIOS and USB boot from a USB pendrive / DVD with the Boot Menu
If you want to start your computer with USB / CD / DVD you will be able to do it with the following methods that we will explain in a simple and fast way. Usually, every time an operating system is installed on your computer, Windows or Mac is already done through a physical format such as CD or DVD .
This is done especially when the device is new or due to a problem formatting has been needed. But, nowadays also it is possible to start the PC with the use of USB, a very good method for those computers that do not have or have deconfigured or damaged the DVD player.
So, today we are going to show you how to start your computer through USB / CD / DVD which you can do in a simple way, for this you just have to follow the steps that We will show you below:
In Windows 10/7/8
You should keep in mind that all computers are different, but, if you cannot get to enter the BIOS boot menu it is important that you restart or shut down the computer.
When the device starts again, you will be shown on the computer screen which button you should select so you can enter the Boot menu . This will be the menu that will allow you to start your computer from the hard drive or from any external drive.
It is very possible that on the screen of your monitor you will see one of the following texts, which you are going to select, this will basically depend on the equipment, since it usually changes in each of them:
- [Key] to enter boot Menu.
- [Key] for boot device selection menu.
- [Key] Book Menu.
- [Key] to enter Multi Boot Selection Menu.
Note that in the text that appears on the screen of your monitor next to it should appear a fixed [key], in most cases it is usually F12, but This varies by device, since the BIOS of each computer is different, can also be F10, F11, F9 , among others.
In many cases, some computers do not show any key option in this way it is unknown what will be the one that will send us to the menu, if this happens what should be done is restart the computer and go pressing the keys F1, F2, F3 and so on until you can enter the Boot menu. It is recommended to try the F12 key first as it is the most common for these cases.
Once you have found the correct [Key], the following will appear on your device screen:
A list of all the options you have available will appear on the screen. There you will see external drives as well as internal hard drives. Once you are at this point you just have to wait for the device to recognize the USB or CD with which you want to boot. When it is recognized you will only have to press the “Enter” key .
On MacOS
Being able to carry out this process in MacOS is much easier, since this is programmed in the system and you only need to use a key on your keyboard to start your computer with an external drive .
- To do this you will only have to press the “Option” key, this is located just to the left of the “Command” key and to the right side from permittedControl†.
- After having the “Option” key pressed on the screen you should see the following image:
- There will appear two options, the first one is “System” which belongs to the hard disk of the equipment and the other is the external drives and which you are going to choose to start your MacOS, for this you will only have to click on the icon and the arrow that appears next to it.
In Ubuntu
Starting the computer in Ubuntu with USB is another doubt that many users have. However, not all people know how to do it. To carry out this process you will have to perform the following steps:
- To start you have to update to the latest version of Ubuntu , you can do this through Ubuntu.com
- Once you have the latest version of Ubuntu installed , you will have to download UNetbootin , a tool that we will use to create the bootable USB , to obtain it you can do it through this site unetbootin.github.io
- Once it is installed it is time to start working.
- To do this, you will open UNetbootin and then select “Image on disk”. Next, a drop-down menu will appear, there you will select ISO .
- Now, you’ll have to click on the three-point icon to be able to load ISO that you’ve downloaded to your hard drive.
- Once this is done, you will select the “Distribution” section that automatically downloads Ubuntu.
- Then you will be able to choose how many spaces you want to keep during reboots. But, the most advisable thing is not to modify this since it is very likely that it will not work.
- In the drop-down menu that appears on the screen you will make sure that the is selected “USB Drive” This appears at the bottom.
- Now select the Driver directory of your USB drive. Then you will click on “Accept” for the process to begin.
- You only have to wait a few minutes while the process is complete. Once this is finished, you can now have a version of Ubuntu with bootable USB .
- The next thing you should do is add persistence to the bootable USB.
- Now you will create a “Casper-rw” file. This will allow your version of Ubuntu to save the files and you can keep. In order to do this it is necessary that you install the PDL Casper-RW Creator tool for Windows, this is one of the easiest and fastest ways to create a persistence file and that it actually works.
- Using this tool is very easy, you only have to select the drive where the USB is connected, now drag your files to the unit with a maximum of 4090MB. You should take into account that this will be subject to how much space you have on your USB drive after installing Ubuntu.
- The following is to go to the “boot directory / gryp ” on your USB Ubuntu drive, there you will open the file “ Grub.cfg ” once there you will look for the following line: linux /casper/vmlinuz.efi file = / cdrom / preseed / ubuntu.seed boot = casper quiet splash
- Now choose the word “Splash” leave a space and type “Persistent” and finally save the file.
- Restart the device and press the key several times to access your BIO, This is usually the F12 key, but keep in mind that this may vary by device.
- The Ubuntu USB drive should be first in the order in which it loads, this is what will guarantee that every time and start the computer it will be booting with Ubuntu instead of booting with any other operating system.
- In the Ubuntu menu you will select “Test Ubuntu without installing” and it will automatically start run.
No BIOS support h3>
This is another of the options that we are going to have to be able to boot the computer without the need to have support in the BIOS. Currently most of the computers allow users to be able to start the system from a USB device.
However, there are many old or outdated computers that do not allow the BIOS to boot from the USB . For this there are several solutions which are very simple to perform, which is why we bring you the easiest and fastest here, and it works correctly.
To know how to boot without support in the BIOS you just have to follow the steps that we will explain below:
- To begin with, the computer must have USB connection, a Pendrive with the ISO to be used, CD-R (W) or label , RUFUS or a similar program and finally the Internet connection on another PC to download an ISO.
- Now we are going to download the ISO from Plop Boot Manager and it will be recorded on the CD drive. On the other hand, the PBM software we will be able to download it in the next link
- Now you are going to have to save the ISO to Pendrive , this is a mandatory requirement to be able to do this, that is, the operating system we want to use for booting. To be able to record this you have to do it in a correct way, since the to the BIOS has to be able to recognize the USB and boot.
- The following will be to order the boot into the BIOS , where the recorded ISO of Plop Boot Manager on a CD or DVD is the first device read by the system. To do this it is important to look in the BIOS for the option of “Boot Manager” , once we have found it we will place it as the first unit to be read, then we must save the changes by pressing the F10 key .
- Now we will see the main screen Plop Boot Manager , once started we will select USB to load the ISO, which has already been recorded previously. Note that this memory must already be inserted in the computer beforehand.
- Finally, and if everything went well, we only have to start the ISO without any inconvenience since the USB.