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How to Make a Bootable USB

Posted on September 15th, 2009 by Marck
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Thanks to developments in hardware and removable storage media, you can now make boot devices out of high-capacity USB thumb drives, flash drives, or even memory cards.  A bootable USB makes it very convenient for people on the go to boot their preferred settings from their own operating system to a public or shared computer.  Booting from USB is not only fast, but it is also useful in situations where you need to use a shared computer but you need the flexibility and reliability of your own OS.  Here are some ways to help you make your own bootable USB device.

Reminders

Almost all  computers are able to boot from external media like floppy drives and compact disks.  A “bootable USB” is an emulation of this feature.  The problem is that not all motherboards are configured to boot from a Universal Serial Bus port, even if you connect a USB floppy drive or CD-ROM drive to a USB port.  To enable booting from a USB drive, the USB port of the motherboard should be configured in such a way that it is part of the boot sequence, and that the computer is able to use it as a booting medium.  A bootable port is needed for both the computer you’re using to make a USB boot disk, and the computer that you’re booting from.

Tools

  • USB disk (flash drive, thumb drive, or memory card; make sure that it has more than enough storage capacity to store the operating system)
  • USB formatting utilities
  • Operating system for booting

Steps

  1. Insert the USB drive into an available USB port.
  2. Format the disk completely to ensure that you have access to all the available space in the drive.
  3. Run a USB formatting utility with the USB still in the drive.  From here you could create a boot sector and a boot loader, which gives the USB drive the capacity to act as a boot device.  Many of these formatting utilities are available for free from the Internet.
  4. You can opt to use Windows as a default booting system for your bootable USB drive, although many professionals in the IT industry prefer to use Linux.
  5. Complete the formatting process and safely remove the USB disk from the port.
  6. Restart your computer, and test the new USB boot device.

Booting from a USB device is a novel concept in computer technology, although it has been used in many instances for quite a while now.  With these tips, you can boot to any public computer using a portable USB drive.

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