Phoenix Network Forums

I wonder if anyone know how to boot an USB driven 2,5 inch disk straight from bios at startup. I have tried every tool I have found on the internet, but they all are very buggy. Lastest tool I tried was flashboot, but that one couldnt reformat 60 Gb 2.5 inch disk. Do anyone have suggestions what I should do?

/wrd

Well, it depends on the capabilities of your BIOS, you should need no external programs to boot to a USB drive, provided that the drive is formatted as bootable. If your BIOS supports booting to a USB device, you will have to change a setting in the BIOS to allow booting from USB, and then change the boot order so that it boots to USB first or however you want to configure it.

This all varies from BIOS to BIOS, so check your motherboard manual before you go and change your boot order.

Also take a look at http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1676.

If your BIOS doesn't support booting from a USB device, then chances are you could use something like LiLo or GRUB. Don't worry; even though they're specialized in booting Linux, they can be used to boot almost anything.

I see how vague my questions is, they are not exactly good by definition.

I have USB-bootable computers from work, they all have that option, boot from usb-device. The thing I got is that the tools needed to reformat the disk cant format the disk to the filesystem needed for a successful boot from bios. I thought these machines only understood the fat system, but the fat system cannot be the size of 60 Gb and the tools I use always want to reformat the whole disk not just a part of it. I will check your suggestions, thanks.

/wrd

wrd wrote:.. I thought these machines only understood the fat system, but the fat system cannot be the size of 60 Gb and the tools I use always want to reformat the whole disk not just a part of it.
/wrd

BIOS just can copy the so-called "Stage1 boot loader" from the first sector of boot device to memory addresses from 0x7C00 to 0x7DFF. Then, the contorol is given to Stage1 boot loader. So all the stuff about loading operation system lies on that loader that you use. So use the proper loader and OS ))) or just another disk operation tools, which can regullary format any drive. I can recommend Acronis Disk Director, Linux cfdisk or Paragon Partition Magic.

I will try that, thanks man!

banderlog wrote:

wrd wrote:.. I thought these machines only understood the fat system, but the fat system cannot be the size of 60 Gb and the tools I use always want to reformat the whole disk not just a part of it.
/wrd

BIOS just can copy the so-called "Stage1 boot loader" from the first sector of boot device to memory addresses from 0x7C00 to 0x7DFF. Then, the contorol is given to Stage1 boot loader.

What this effectively means: either you need a filesystem that has a boot-sector as the first block (usually the first three bytes being a machine code jump to the actual boot code), or you need a master boot record (which usually just jumps to the individual boot sector).

In other words: you need a boot manager or a bootable operating system on the drive. As suggested, try LiLo/GRUB, because they are free.

banderlog wrote:So all the stuff about loading operation system lies on that loader that you use. So use the proper loader and OS ))) or just another disk operation tools, which can regullary format any drive. I can recommend Acronis Disk Director, Linux cfdisk or Paragon Partition Magic.

Not really. Usually the boot code is not related to the operating system (though some have their own boot code, like DOS). Also the boot code is not related to any of the tools you mentioned. If you, for example, edit your partition table by cfdisk, you're not changing the boot code, but just the partition table. This also explains, why programs like Partition Magic and Boot Magic are unrelated and can be used simultaneously without problems, or even without worrying about intersections, from the programmer's point of view.

banderlog wrote:... just another disk operation tools, which can regullary format any drive. I can recommend Acronis Disk Director, Linux cfdisk or Paragon Partition Magic...

==

mm_freak wrote:... Also the boot code is not related to any of the tools you mentioned. If you, for example, edit your partition table by cfdisk, you're not changing the boot code, but just the partition table... .

i've just mentioned that they can properly change partition table and create filesystem on drives (besides cfdisk which only edits the partition table). Maybe we just haven't undertood each other.

banderlog wrote:i've just mentioned that they can properly change partition table and create filesystem on drives (besides cfdisk which only edits the partition table). Maybe we just haven't undertood each other. :D

Maybe... but I still don't get what that has to do with the actual topic. =P