How to Turn a USB Storage Device Into a Bootable Disk

If you wish for your computer to boot up into a USB storage disc instead of the hard drive on your computer, there is any easy way to make this happen. All you have to do is to change the boot-up options from the main menu upon start-up so that it loads using the information found on your USB storage device.

A USB storage device is a type of flash drive, and will need to be formatted before you can boot-up your computer to read this device.

1. Connect your USB device to your computer that has Microsoft Windows loaded onto it.


2. Click on the start menu on the bottom left-hand side of the screen. This will pull up a separate menu.


3. Click on the tab marked "Computer." This will bring up the contents of your computer including your external USB drive.


4. Right-click on the flash drive icon. This will bring up a drop down menu.


5. Click on the format option on the drop down menu.


6. Choose the option "FAT 32" under the drop down menu on the formatting options.


7. Where it says "Volume Label," type in the name of the drive that you would like your USB drive to be named.


8. Reboot the computer once you have completed the above steps. Upon reload you will see your computer formatting the drive, wait for this process to finish. Once it is compete, your USB drive will be in bootable format.


9. Be sure that you have files on your USB drive that will provide your computer with the necessary information to load properly.


10. If you experience any problems, you can easily reboot your computer, and hit the "F 12" key to bring up your start-up options. This is how you change the system back to boot-up using the hard drive on your computer when you are done.