Bootable USB keys

[lo5750ul]

Hi all,

I am looking for some technical documentation on the USB key design requirements for the key to be bootable.

I am also looking for a utility to format a USB key as a bootable device.

Do any of you have any experience in these areas? Any help is very greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Lost (and confused) soul

 

[Matthias99]

This is really something for, say, Tech Support or General Hardware.

I believe that a key being bootable has less to do with the device and more to do with the system. It's like asking "what does it take for a floppy to be bootable"?

 

[glugglug]

There is no such thing as a bootable USB key, at least for PC.

My USB flash reader has a light on it indicating if the flash drive is even mounted by the system. This does not happen until Windows is about halfway through the boot process.

 

[Matthias99]

There most certainly is.

Your flash card reader may not be mounted by the system until Windows gets its paws on it, but at least some motherboards are capable of booting from a standard USB memory key plugged into an onboard USB port, assuming it is formatted correctly.

 

[sao123]

Regardless of the format of the device,
No USB device is bootable unless your BIOS contains code to allow the device to be recognized by the bootstrap process.
I currently know of absolutely zero vendors which currently make that claim.

I'm not even sure USB key drives have a proper boot sector to be formatted for boot.

 

[Links4me]

I know for a fact the newer dell desktops have "usb device" listed in the boot order.........

 

[Links4me]

Here is a couple of links to create bootable usb keys........ Create a bootable USB flash drive
Dell forums
Don't know if there are other manufacturers who have this option.....I'm gonna try it.

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: Links4me
I know for a fact the newer dell desktops have "usb device" listed in the boot order.........

mine does. I ahve linux on a key

 

[Peter]

Many BIOSes now contain code to boot off a USB storage device, be it CDROM, FDD, or HDD. All a USB device must implement to be bootable is a proper, standards compliant, "USB mass storage" class entity. If it uses a vendor proprietary protocol, it won't work. These are getting rare though.
If you have a compliant device (a good hint for this is that Windows XP doesn't ask for drivers), it's all a matter of putting a file system on it and flagging it bootable.