How to make a USB disk bootable

[Dave]

Hi,

My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive but the BIOS supports booting directly
from a USB. I downloaded the HP program that supposedly formats a USB as
bootable. However, without a floppy drive I obviously cannot copy a boot
floppy onto the USB. Does anyone know how I can get the boot files onto my
USB so I can boot to a DOS prompt? I think I saw a disk image to do that
with but all it did was give me a Windows 98 startup screen and then it
hung.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

There are three elements to make a USB flash drive bootable on a system:

** The host system must support booting from a USB flash drive.
(Please check with your system manufacturer.)

** The USB flash drive must support booting in general.
(Please check with your USB flash drive vendor.)

** The USB flash drive must contain boot/system files.
Typically, vendors of USB flash drives that support bootability will
provide you with a tool that will make the drive bootable.

USB Flash Drive FAQ
http://www.usbflashdrive.org/usbfd_faq.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Hi,
|
| My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive but the BIOS supports booting directly
| from a USB. I downloaded the HP program that supposedly formats a USB as
| bootable. However, without a floppy drive I obviously cannot copy a boot
| floppy onto the USB. Does anyone know how I can get the boot files onto my
| USB so I can boot to a DOS prompt? I think I saw a disk image to do that
| with but all it did was give me a Windows 98 startup screen and then it
| hung.
|
| Any advice appreciated.