I would like to know as to how to save a boot order sequence...In my desktop PC I have a gigabyte MOBO housing Pentium Dual Core processor...

Whenever I have to boot from an external USB , I have to press del at boot , go into CMOS features and change the Order of Booting 1-DVD 2 USB-FDD 3. USB-HDD 4. Local Hard Disk

The problem is that everytime I have to repeat the above to boot from USB...I am also confused between USB - HDD and USB - FDD...Some utils partition and use the USB like a HDD while it is not the case with FDD I guess

How do you freeze the boot order so that on inserting any USB / External HDD at boot , the system should give it the priority over local hard disk..

Also in Giga MOBO I noticed that there is no "generic USB" mentioned in BIOS...It lists the USB device by name say "Kingston Data Traveler " "Sandisk Micro" etc ....

What should I do to make the boot order permanent?

I think GRUB 2 is solution.
On the other hand I use shortcut F12 and doesn't mind.

Even I have GRUB 2 installed ..But how do you configure booting from a USB in GRUB 2?..Isnt that a BIOS related feature?? ..I mean the BIOS loads devices first and hands over to the boot loader , right?

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

When you get into the BIOS for setup, you then can change whatever state is desired. BIOS functions keys are listed at the bottom of the screen. F10 generally will save the BIOS state on most modern BIOS. A confirmation will be required, Y/N.

You are correct, IPL(Initial program Load) from the MBR will load the bootloader and then the bootloader will pass control.

My usb's show up under hard drives. I move them up above the installed drives and as long as the usb stays connected it remains that way.

If you remove the USB and restart the computer, the BIOS will automatically rearrange the bootorder. At least my Gigabyte does that. But I don't have a problem with that, because, as Last_Sioux already stated, you can press F12 insted Del at boot time and will be presented with a boot-menu, where you can choose the device to boot from. Both, the rearranging and the key to bring up the menu, are manufacturer specific. On my fileserver with Intel-mainboard, everytime a USB-drive is present, it will boot from that, instead from the harddisk. I can change that in BIOS, and it actually doesn't rearrange the order, if the USB-drive is not present.