USB Diskette/hard disk

So I went in my BIOS on my HP laptop and seen in boot settings USBDiskette/hard disk or drive, so I made it to boot before my hard drive and all I got was {missing OS} so I went back and made it to boot after my hard drive. So how does it work with that setting and what is it used for ???. I still had my usb mouse pluged in and a usb 2 gig momery stick in, so then what is a USB floppy. It is just a question and wanted to know more about it.

banderz777 said:

So I went in my BIOS on my HP laptop and seen in boot settings USBDiskette/hard disk or drive, so I made it to boot before my hard drive and all I got was {missing OS} so I went back and made it to boot after my hard drive. So how does it work with that setting and what is it used for ???. I still had my usb mouse pluged in and a usb 2 gig momery stick in, so then what is a USB floppy. It is just a question and wanted to know more about it.

To boot from USB Stick instead of HD, CD or DVD, you first need a bootable USB stick. This tutorial tells for instance how to use bootable USB media to install Windows 7.

USB boot is used mainly when installing an operating system to a computer without an optical drive (CD/DVD). It is also used to boot computer to a different portable operating system, i.e. Linux.

Personally I use bootable USB media when helping customers with a crashed system. I have my own "Data Rescue" USB stick, where I have all the tools and applications to recover user files from a non-bootable system.

If USB boot option comes only after the HD in your boot settings, nothing happens as long as your HD has a working OS.

Kari said:

To boot from USB Stick instead of HD, CD or DVD, you first need a bootable USB stick. This tutorial tells for instance how to use bootable USB media to install Windows 7.

USB boot is used mainly when installing an operating system to a computer without an optical drive (CD/DVD). It is also used to boot computer to a different portable operating system, i.e. Linux.

Personally I use bootable USB media when helping customers with a crashed system. I have my own "Data Rescue" USB stick, where I have all the tools and applications to recover user files from a non-bootable system.

If USB boot option comes only after the HD in your boot settings, nothing happens as long as your HD has a working OS.

Thanks Kari, but I have USB Floppy and USBDiskette/harddrive, my USB floppy is the first in the boot up order then CD/DVD then my hard drive then USB diskette and network ???, so when I but USB diskette before the hard drive it told me that I was missing my OS what is that ??

banderz777 said:

Thanks Kari, but I have USB Floppy and USBDiskette/harddrive, my USB floppy is the first in the boot up order then CD/DVD then my hard drive then USB diskette and network ???, so when I but USB diskette before the hard drive it told me that I was missing my OS what is that ??

First, I am sorry about my earlier misunderstanding. I thought you were talking about USB flash drive, stick. Now I understand we are talking about floppy disks.

It simply means the system can not find any valid operating system on your USB floppy drive and/or it is not bootable. Remove the diskette from the USB Floppy drive and you should be able to boot normally.

I recommend changing boot order so that the USB Floppy comes last. Or do you really need the possibility to boot from floppy?

Danke Kari fuer das info.:)

banderz777 said:

Danke Kari fuer das info.:)

Kein problem, ich bin nur froh, wenn ich dich helfen könnte.

Your German seems to be better than mine!

FWIW: I disable floppy boot (as I have no floppy), password protect my BIOS, and set my computer to boot from the HD first - I can always use the boot menu to pick another device if needed....