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November 23rd, 2017 14:00
Modify Boot Source?
Hi Everyone,
I have an Inspiron 5455 with an OEM version of win10 pre-installed. I was prompted to create a rescue medium so I could recover from a crash, so I elected to create it to a USB flash drive.
Wanting to test it before messing with the hard drive re-partitioning (wanting to install Kubuntu with Win10 for a dual-boot system), I inserted it into a USB slot and booted up the machine... which booted normally from the hard drive.
So... how does one go about booting this machine from a flash drive? Or from any source other than the hard drive? I went into the BIOS (documentation on the options in this BIOS would be really nice too, if it existed somewhere I could find it....) and found no way to select boot order from different boot sources. Following a post I found somewhere, I went back into the BIOS to turn off the "Secure Boot," only to be confronted with dire warnings that I could render the OS completely unbootable. Sheesh. This is exactly the nightmare scenario I want to avoid, having just had an Asus G73JH brick on me while trying to do the same thing (install Linux beside Windows). Used to be a lot easier with older BIOS!
So what do I need to do to get this machine to boot from a USB flash drive (or DVD, for that matter....)?
Thanks for your help!
jphughan
9 Legend
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14K Posts
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November 23rd, 2017 22:00
Make sure the flash drive is connected when you start the PC, then press F12 while you see the Dell logo displayed, which will bring up a one-time boot menu to select an alternate boot device. That’s much more convenient than rearranging your boot order for a single boot. Disabling Secure Boot will not make your system unbootable. However, ENABLING it can if the OS you use doesn’t support it, and switching between Legacy and UEFI boot mode definitely can.
All that said, don’t rely on the Dell Recovery media. If something happens to your system, you’d probably rather roll back to a point shortly before the incident rather than going all the way back to the factory state, in which case use a tool like Macrium Reflect (it has free and paid versions) to capture full system images on a regular basis so you can restore from those if needed.