http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2007/10/16/how-to-make-a-usb-flash-drive-bootable/

bbie10.zip mkbt20.zip

How To Make a USB Flash Drive Bootable
Author: Raymond

16 Oct


How to boot from USBMichael Y from forum has reminded me about booting computer using USB flash drive. I’ve heard about that long ago and I know it’s possible but then I’ve never tried it myself. That’s because so far I’ve been fixing computers that has a working CD/DVD-Rom. Even IF there is a non functional CD/DVD-ROM, I can dismantle a working CD/DVD-ROM from another computer. However, I figured that it’s good to learn and know how to make your USB flash drive bootable. You can boot up Hiren’s BootCD from USB flash drive, install Windows using USB flash drive and even resetting Windows account password using Windows Key. See how useful it is to know how to make your USB flash drive bootable?

We all know that we can use floppy drive and CD/DVD to boot up your computer. There are also ISO files that contains boot image that when you burn it with Nero, the media disc will be bootable.

Here are some question that I ask myself before starting to do research on how to make a USB flash drive bootable.
1. Is it possible to copy floppy boot image to USB flash drive?
2. Is it possible to copy CD/DVD boot image to USB flash drive?
3. Is it possible to extract boot image from ISO files and write it to USB flash drive?
4. How to configure BIOS to boot with USB flash drive?
5. Can all USB flash drive be made bootable?

I am glad to have found all the answers to the question above.

1. Is it possible to copy floppy boot image to USB flash drive?
It is possible possible to copy floppy boot image to a USB flash drive by using BootDisk2BootStick. Just select the source (floppy) and destination (USB flash drive) and click the Start button.
Copy floppy boot image to usb flash drive

2. Is it possible to copy CD/DVD boot image to USB flash drive?
It is possible but not with BootDisk2BootStick because it doesn’t support CD/DVD. You need to extract the boot image from the CD/DVD first, and then write the boot image that you’ve extracted to the USB flash drive.

- Extract boot image from CD/DVD using BBIE by Bart Lagerweij
Command to extract CD/DVD boot image using BBIE is “bbie D:” without the quotes and assuming D: is your CD/DVD drive.
BBIE Bart Boot Image Extractor
[ Download BBIE ]

- Write the extracted boot image from CD/DVD to USB flash drive using MKBT by Bart Lagerweij
Command to write boot image file to USB flash drive is “MKBT -x image1.bin e:” without the quotes. image1.bin is the filename of the boot image and e: is the drive letter of your USB flash drive.
MKBT write boot image to USB
[ Download MKBT ]

3. Is it possible to extract boot image from ISO files and write it to USB flash drive?
Yes it is possible. The steps to extract boot image from ISO file is very similar to the answer on question number 2.
Use BBIE to extract boot image from ISO with the command “bbie filename.iso“. Then write the boot image to USB flash drive using MKBT with the command “mkbt -x image1.bin e:”

4. How to configure BIOS to boot with USB flash drive?
Different BIOS has different way to setting your USB flash drive as a boot device. If your system can’t support it, try checking for BIOS update. Also, not all computers can get in to BIOS by pressing the “Del” key. Some are F2 and some are F10. If you’re unsure, it will be displayed on the screen during the initial boot of a computer. If it’s too fast, you can hit the Pause/Break key.

For computer that uses AMI BIOS.
Option 1;
Go to “Feature Setup” and enable these options: “USB Function Support”, “USB Function For DOS” and “ThumbDrive for DOS”.
Go to “Advanced Setup” and set the “1st Boot Device” to “USB RMD-FDD”.
Reboot the PC and it now should boot from the USB flash drive.

Option 2;
Go to “USB Mass Storage Device Configuration”, select “Emulation Type” and set it to “Harddisk”.
Go to the “Boot Menu” and set the “1st boot device” to “USB-Stick”.
No you can exit the BIOS, saving the changes. If this does not seem to work, then you can try (it sometimes seems to work) setting the “Emulation Type” value to “Floppy” or “Forced FDD”.

For computer that uses PHOENIX/AWARD BIOS.
Go to “Advanced BIOS Features”, then to the “1st Boot device” and set it to “USB-ZIP”.

Some newer motherboard supports Boot Order by pressing the F8 (keys might vary). I have a MSI 945P Platinum board and it is using Phoenix BIOS, Revision 6. At first I wasn’t able to boot up my USB flash drive but later I found out that I need to go to the Boot Order screen and select “Hard Disk” and hit enter. It will then give me a list of Hard Drives. My Kingston USB flash drive is listed as USB-HDD0.

For computer that uses Generic BIOS.
If your BIOS is not in the list above, or the settings do not seem to work with your PC, then you can try this:
- Go into the BIOS
- Go to the page that determines the boot order (usually called “Advanced Setup”, “Boot options”, or “Feature Setup”)
- Try all USB drive variants. Start with “USB ZIP”, then “USB FDD”, “USB HDD “, etc.

5. Can all USB flash drive be made bootable?
I don’t have a 100% sure answer for this question but I’ve tested it on 3 different types of USB flash drives and all can be made bootable. The brands are Kingston, PenDrive and Corsair. In my opinion, you should be more concern about whether your motherboard supports booting from USB flash drive rather than having a USB flash drive that can boot.

You can test your USB flash drive whether it is bootable or not by using a memory testing tool called USBTest created by PenDriveLinux. Just download, extract the files to your USB flash drive and run makeboot.bat. Configure your BIOS to boot up with the USB flash drive. If you see a white background with a USB connector picture and some text that says “The installed program can be used to check your system memory for problems…”, that means your USB flash drive is bootable and your system is capable of booting from a USB flash drive.

This concludes my research on making USB flash drive bootable. Michael Y’s question was he wanted to reset Windows password using DreamPack_PL but his CD/DVD drive is not working. I’ve tried to extract DreamPack_PL boot image and write it to my USB flash drive but it couldn’t be booted up while I have no problems with other ISO. There might be something wrong or different with DreamPack_PL’s boot image that is causing BBIE not to extract the boot image properly. A better tool to reset Windows user account password is Windows Key. You can also load additional drivers to unlock SCSI/RAID/SATA hard drive which DreamPack_PL can’t do.
Reset Windows Password with Windows Keys
Windows Key Enterprise cost US$295 and I wonder who actually buys them? But Team ARN has already released a retail version and serial number (LostPassword.Passware.Kit.Enterprise.v8.1.2670.Retail-ARN) for Passware Kit which contains Windows Key Enterprise.