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Making a USB flash drive into a bootable drive isn't that easy, which I think has kept flash drives from completely eclipsing the old-school floppy disk. Almost every computer shipped these days supports the ability to boot from a USB device in BIOS, but making a USB flash drive (not an external USB hard drive) into a bootable device requires some fancy footwork.
A bootable flash drive can be used to perform many tasks. You can use a bootable USB drive as a rescue disk or as a way to do flash upgrades or other system-level changes that require a boot disk. You can also use it to launch applications that run from their own DOS boot floppy without having to put up with the horrendously slow load times of a floppy disk.
To create a bootable USB flash drive, you'll need the following:
The USB flash drive will boot like a floppy and run a DOS command line, so keep in mind that any utilities or files you copy to it will need to work as DOS command-line applications.
To create your bootable USB flash drive:
When you boot the USB drive, bear in mind that not all PCs are set to boot from a USB device by default. You will probably have to make changes in BIOS to allow this, and the exact steps for this will vary widely from machine to machine. Some machines require that "Legacy USB keyboard support" is enabled to do this.
In almost every case, you must plug the USB drive directly into the computer -- not through a hub -- to allow it to boot, since devices plugged into hubs are not generally enumerated by BIOS at boot time.
A bootable flash drive can be used to perform many tasks. You can use a bootable USB drive as a rescue disk or as a way to do flash upgrades or other system-level changes that require a boot disk. You can also use it to launch applications that run from their own DOS boot floppy without having to put up with the horrendously slow load times of a floppy disk.
To create a bootable USB flash drive, you'll need the following:
- a 3.5-inch floppy disk
- a computer with Windows XP, a 3.5-inch floppy drive and at least one USB port
- Bart's MKBT utility, freeware for copying boot sectors.
The USB flash drive will boot like a floppy and run a DOS command line, so keep in mind that any utilities or files you copy to it will need to work as DOS command-line applications.
To create your bootable USB flash drive:
- Get a blank 3.5-inch floppy (you'll only need to do this part once).
- Insert it into the floppy drive of a Windows XP computer, right-click on the "3 1/2 Floppy" icon in My Computer, and select Format. Be sure to select the "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" option when you format the disk.
- Unpack MKBT into a folder.
- Open a command-line window and go to the folder with MKBTbootsect.bin (which will be written into the folder you're running MKBT
When you boot the USB drive, bear in mind that not all PCs are set to boot from a USB device by default. You will probably have to make changes in BIOS to allow this, and the exact steps for this will vary widely from machine to machine. Some machines require that "Legacy USB keyboard support" is enabled to do this.
In almost every case, you must plug the USB drive directly into the computer -- not through a hub -- to allow it to boot, since devices plugged into hubs are not generally enumerated by BIOS at boot time.
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