How to Boot From a Jump Drive

If you want to wipe your hard drive, re-install your operating system, or install your operating system on a separate computer, you will need a boot disk. While you can boot directly from a recovery CD or from a floppy disk, most computers are not set up to automatically boot from a jump drive. To boot successfully from a jump drive, you will need to change several features in your operating system and use two utilities that can be downloaded from the internet.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• USB jump drive
• Operating system recovery CD

1. Open your web browsing program and navigate to a website that offers a USB formatting software tool (see Resources). Click on the download link and then click on "Save File" when a window pops up asking what action you would like to take. Wait for the file to finish downloading and then open the folder where your downloaded files are saved. Double click on the file and follow the instructions on the screen to install the program.

2. 
   USB Formatting Program

   Plug the jump drive into an open USB port on your computer. Double click on the desktop icon for the USB formatting tool that was installed. Select the jump drive's location from the drop down menu at the top of the program and then select "FAT32" from the "File System" drop down menu. Click on the "Start" button and wait for the program to finish formatting the jump drive.

3. Click on the "My Computer" icon and then click on the "Tools" menu. Choose the option that says "Folder Options." Click on "View" and then choose the option that says "Show Hidden Files." Open the search feature and locate the "BOOT.ini," "NTLDR.ini" and "NTDETECT.ini" files. Copy the files over to the jump drive.

4. Remove the jump drive and re-start your computer. Press the "F2" key when the operating system loading screen appears. Scroll through the list of options that will appear and choose the one that says "Boot Priority." Scroll down and choose the option that says "USB-HDD" to set your computer to boot from a USB drive.

5. 
   The Bart PE Program

   Hit "Enter" to finish loading your operating system. Open your web browser and navigate to the website for the "Bart PE" software program. Download and install the program. Put the recovery CD for your operating system into your computer's CD drive and then open the Bart PE program. Click on the browse button next to the "Source" field and choose the location for the CD drive. Note down the location listed in the "Output" field. Click on "Build" to produce a version of the operating system small enough to fit on the jump drive.

6. Put the jump drive back into the USB port on your computer. Navigate to the location you noted down earlier where the file was created by the Bart PE program. Drag the file into the jump drive. Re-start the computer with the jump drive still in the USB port to boot the operating system from the jump drive.

Tips & Warnings

• Your computer will not attempt to boot from the jump drive if you don't first re-format it to the FAT32 file system.

Resources

• Download USB Format Tool
• Bart PE Software Website