Boot from a USB drive

[kputem]

I have a P6206uk with a Pegatron M2N68-LA motherboard.

Will it boot from an external USB hard drive? (With the BIOS set up appropriately.)

Unfortunately, I can't find the answer either on these forums, or by Googling. So I'm having to ask!

I want to find out if it will, before going to the expense of buying a drive.

Many thanks for any information.

Keith

[erico]

Hi,

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@kputem wrote:

I have a P6206uk with a Pegatron M2N68-LA motherboard.

Will it boot from an external USB hard drive? (With the BIOS set up appropriately.)

Unfortunately, I can't find the answer either on these forums, or by Googling. So I'm having to ask!

I want to find out if it will, before going to the expense of buying a drive.

Many thanks for any information.

Keith

---

There is a simple and inexpensive way to find out.

Create a bootable USB thumbdrive. (they are inexpensive. 1 GB should suffice).

Plug it into a USB port. 

Go into the BIOS during startup ( F10 key) 

Look through the BIOS menu and find startup order.

If you see USB drive or other as an option for a boot drive, then yes, you can boot from a USB drive.

regards,
erico

[kputem]

Thanks, erico, for your suggestion.

I was hoping that someone knew before I purchased the thumbdrive.

But, as you say, they are very cheap, although, as it is to install a Linux distribution on, I will need a drive of at least 4GB.

Sorry for the dalay in replying to you. It was due to family illness.

Regards

Keith

[erico]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the illness.

When you start up the desktop, most HP PCs use F10 to access the BIOS. Take a look at startup or Boot options in the BIOS. that should let you know.

regards,
erico

[kputem]

Hello erico.

Thank you for your suggestion.

Looking at the Boot options in the BIOS, all it gives there is:

Floppy Group Boot Priority        [Not Installed]

CD-ROM Group Boot Priority   [My DVD Drive]

HDD Group Boot Priority          [My Hard Drive]

Network Group Boot Priority    [Not installed]

There's no mention of USB, unless it would appear in the Network part. So it looks as though I will have to buy one to check.

Regards

Keith

[ibfrenchy]

Hey Guys,

for the most part all "modern" motherboards have the ability to boot from a USB device. If the motherboard supports USB you can pretty much count on it being able to boot from that device. The reason you don't see USB in the list of devices to boot from is because it did not detect any bootable USB device. Once you plug one in, it will show up. The Motherboard you are using is referred to as the Narra6, here is the spec page on HP.com:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01925534

You can boot from a thumb drive.

bf

[kputem]

Hello ibfrenchy.

Thank you very much for your reply and the information that I can boot from a USB drive.

Thank you also for pointing me to the motherboard specification page. That too is some information which I wanted.

With your help and erico's, all is now sorted.

Thanks, both.

Keith