How to Boot From a USB Drive

If you have an extra USB drive, it's a good idea to consider making that drive a boot drive. Having a bootable USB thumb drive can be really handy for computers that don't have a CD drive, such as netbooks for some laptops. It's also typically a faster way to install an operating system than from a CD. Most importantly, having a bootable USB drive is a very useful when something goes wrong with your computer.

· Download Unetbootin, a free program for Windows and Linux capable of turning any thumb drive into a boot CD. The link is in the Resources section of this article.

· Decide what you want your flash drive to boot.

· Free operating systems, such as Ubuntu Linux, are going to be the easiest to set up, because they are free to download and install. In fact, Unetbootin can download these for you automatically.

· Setting up a Windows boot disc is a little more difficult, because Windows is proprietary and not intended to be used this way. It's still possible to make the install disk boot from a USB drive, however.

· Rip your installation CD to an ISO, if necessary.

· Linux users can typically do this out of the box by right clicking a mounted CD and clicking "Burn copy," then "burning" the disc to an ISO image.

· Windows users can do this using ISO Recorder (free download, see Resources.) Once the program is installed creating an ISO file from a CD is as easy as inserting the CD, right clicking it in Windows Explorer, then clicking "Create image from CD."

· Start Unetbootin and pick the operating system you want to boot. If you want a Linux boot CD, you can choose from a wide variety of Linux versions in the drop down menu at the top of the window---Ubuntu is an easy to use version of Linux if you don't know what to choose.

· If you want to use an ISO file on your computer, you can do this too---just select the "Disk Image" option and browse for your ISO.

· Select the drive you are turning into a bootable USB drive, making sure not to overwrite any data you want to keep. When you're ready to go, click "OK" and your USB drive will become bootable.