[dahliorse]

Does anyone know if it is possible to change the bios boot preferences to a USB device in a HP Pavilion desktop pc? (Bios 3.14)

At first glance there appears to be no option to change the preferences to boot from a USB device; but since I'm a novice and my computer is totally new and up to date, surely it's possible to boot from a USB device, is it?!

The bios only has the option to boot from a cd/dvd drive or a hard drive. There are other options but they are disabled, such as a floppy drive.

I'd be really grateful for any help.

If you are curious: I want to turn my external hard drive into a live usb drive for a linux os.

yours,

dahliorse

[Triple6]

If the option isn't there now then you may be out of luck. Have you checked to see if there are BIOS updates? How old and what model is the HP?

[dahliorse]

I have downloaded an update but I have not installed it yet. Concerned that the update might not work and mess everything up.

The present bios does have a number of disabled options, so I'm kind of hopeful. Also I read somewhere, wish I'd bookmarked the page, that changing the boot priority to a floppy drive will boot via USB if there is no floppy drive.

Was hopeful that this was really the case.

[Triple6]

Just look through all the settings, on many new systems you need to add Removable to the boot order and then in a separate Removable boot device menu you can choose what removable boot devices to boot from.

[Zimm511]

I found my USB drive in the boot order's Hard Drive menu. Could be that I have a different BIOS though, or an older one. (I have a Pavilion a520.)

[tech1982]

hey wat hp pavilion u got?
if u wanna boot from usb cd drive just set to cd boot as 1st priority
if u wanna boot from usb hdd select hdd as a 2nd priority