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Questions tagged [bootable-media]

For questions about bootable devices such as Flash Drives, CD/DVD or Hard Disks.

All computers have some method of loading an operating system, called booting it. The drive or device containing the operating system must be made bootable so the BIOS can understand that it contains the operating system's bootloader. This may be done by setting the partition "active", placing certain files in special folders (for example, MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM in the root of the drive for MS-DOS, placing System and Finder in the system folder for Macintoshes), or performing other configurations.

As usual, Wikipedia has an article on the process. For more modern computers, see this section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting#Modern_boot_loaders

687 questions
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Hyper-V VM won't boot from Cd, error: "unsigned image's hash is not allowed"

I went to install a Debian instance on Windows Hyper-V client in Windows 10. However, when I attempted to start the VM, it would not boot from the cd. Eventually the Hyper-V BIOS gave me a failure to start screen that listed boot devices and their…
Thomas
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193
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23 answers

How do I place a bootable ISO on a USB drive?

What's the best way of placing a bootable ISO on a USB drive, such that the drive is bootable? ISOs such as a live Linux preview disk, Windows installation ISO, etc.
Justin White
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100
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9 answers

How do I burn an ISO on a USB drive on Mac OS X?

what's the best way to get an ISO "burned" to a USB stick on a Mac? Restoring using Disk Utility does not work. The ISO is ubuntu mini.iso. It is the minimalist install ISO for installing ubuntu. It needs to be bootable on a PC. I am trying to…
Jason Marcell
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80
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3 answers

What version of MS-DOS does Rufus use to make bootable USBs?

Rufus allows for the creation of a bootable MS-DOS flash drive. It does this out of the box as an option without needing to specify an image or ISO. However, documentation on the tool is virtually non-existent as it is, and I can't find anything…
Hashim Aziz
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4 answers

How to create a bootable USB from a bootable ISO with the command line on Linux?

I have a CD that's created from an ISO file which I use to install a custom version of Ubuntu via Plop Linux. The CD works fine but I'd like to use a bootable USB drive instead. I used the command dd to try and create the bootable USB: dd…
greggmi
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43
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7 answers

How to create a bootable USB Windows OS using Mac OS X

I'm having trouble here because of my PC got infected today and I've tried everything to get it back to normal, but the only option left for me now is to do a clean install. Now, what happens is that I have MacBook Pro with 8GB USB. I've downloaded…
Ali
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42
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4 answers

If I copy a bootable USB drive to another USB, will it create a duplicate bootable drive?

I thought it's kind of a dumb question but a search with Google seems to indicate that it is not even possible to copy/paste data on a bootable drive to another USB? But even if we were able to copy it, why should it not work? (that is creating a…
zar
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39
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7 answers

Unable to Make Bootable USB Stick From ISO

I'm trying to use the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the Microsoft Store to make my new 16 GB USB Flash drive bootable to install Windows. It worked the first time that I did this (for Windows 7 Pro 32-bit), but now it keeps failing at the…
Jim Fell
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36
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5 answers

How can I keep multiple live/bootable ISO images on a single USB drive?

I am looking to create a USB flash drive that I can put multiple live CD ISO images on and select which boots from startup. The ideal candidate supports Linux and Windows-based ISO images, and is relatively simple. It also must have some reasonable…
Keck
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26
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3 answers

How to see if USB stick has MBR?

I have a USB stick supposed to be bootable, but the computer does not boot it. I suspect that there is no MBR (Master Boot Record). How do I test if this is so, preferably from command line in Linux.
Mads Skjern
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How to create a bootable Memtest86+ on USB flash drive?

Normally, this should not be a problem. But usually, it always is. The Memtest86+ website hosts a specially prepped EXE auto-installer file that will format your USB flash drive, copy Memtest86+ binaries to it and make it bootable. It's packed as a…
Samir
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22
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8 answers

How can I check whether an ISO image is bootable?

On Windows, how can I check whether an ISO image is bootable, without writing it to a DVD or running it on virtual machine?
Nalaka526
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19
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5 answers

Create bootable CD from ISO

I need to create a bootable CD from an ISO. Is there free software available? I am using Windows 7.
ScG
17
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1 answer

How do I boot my Samsung laptop from a CD/DVD?

I have a Samsung Series 3 laptop and want to boot from an Ubuntu Live CD. When I press F10 to pull up the BIOS/boot configuration, I don't get an option to boot from the CD. Similarly, in the BIOS, I can see that the optical drive is present, but…
rob
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16
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4 answers

Installing windows 11 fails, "A media driver your computer needs is missing" error

I've been trying to install win11 on my MSI Pulse laptop, but whenever I boot from USB it gives me error "A media driver your computer needs is missing". I found out so far that INTEL VMD/IRST is responsible for this error. It's an new intel tech to…
Anna
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