Booting From USB when BIOS does not have the option.

metalx1000 · 04-12-2008, 02:46 PM

My laptop is 4 or 5 years old now and it does not have the option to boot from a USB device.

Is there a way to get grub to boot from a USB drive?

I'm running PCLinuxOS.
I've edited my Grub Menu as follows

Code:

timeout 5
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/pclos-gnome/boot/message
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/hda1 acpi=on resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title Linux USB
root (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Option 1 is to boot from My hard drive and option 2 is to boot from my USB Drive. Option 2 does not work. It says something like, "Disk Not Found".
I've tried changing the "root (hd1,0)" to a bunch of different thing, such as "root (hd2,0)". No luck.

Am I wasting my time, or is this possible?

P.S. I know the USB Drive works, because I can boot it on my desktop and a few other computers I have tried.

Peacedog · 04-12-2008, 05:49 PM

Hi metalx1000, You might try adding the "boot" option to the usb entry.

Code:

title Linux USB
root (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

There are some other tips here.
Good luck. ;-)