How To Make a USB Drive Bootable

HP's Make USB Bootable Utility There are times when you may need to make a USB Flash Drive bootable. Please not that this does NOT work for non-flash USB devices such as External Hard Drives. Hewlett Packard (HP) Provides a Utility that allows you to make any USB Flash Drive able to boot into MS-DOS.

To begin, download and extract the following file: make_usb_bootable.zip

Contents:
Make USB Bootable.exe - Main executable, makes the drive bootable
Use These Boot Files/COMMAND.COM - MS-DOS 6.22 Command Interpreter
Use These Boot Files/IO.SYS - MS-DOS 6.22 Hardware Functions
Use These Boot Files/MSDOS.SYS - MS-DOS 6.22 Driver Support

Instructions

Before we begin, please back up all data on your Flash Drive. All data WILL be erased from the drive. You will be able to copy your data back after the utility has finished running.

To begin, run “Make USB Bootable.exe”. In the Device drop-down menu choose your Flash Drive. Any drive you choose will be erased. Under Filesystem choose FAT32. Volume Label can be a short descriptive label for your Flash Drive.

In the Format Options frame, check “Quick Format” and “Create DOS Startup Disk”. Use the “…” button to browse to the “Use These Boot Files” that was extracted from the zip archive you downloaded earlier.

Click Start. All data will be erased from the drive and replaced with MS-DOS boot files. At this point you can copy anything you wish to the drive. Do not delete any files are currently present on the drive. These files are crucial to DOS's bootup sequence.

You now have a USB flash drive that is bootable. You may need to adjust BIOS settings or press a certain key during start up to boot from this device.

howto/how_to_make_a_usb_drive_bootable.txt · Last modified: 2011/10/14 10:35 by 127.0.0.1
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