USB Boot Manager: How to Access the Boot Menu on a Phoenix Award BIOS to Select a USB Flash Drive as the First Boot Device. Booting from a USB flash drive allows you to run or install an operating system, perform system recovery, or run a live system without using your internal hard drive.
This guide will demonstrate how to access the Boot Menu on a Phoenix Award BIOS and set a USB flash drive as the first boot device.
The system used for this demonstration features an MSI K8N Neo4 (MS-7125) motherboard. This board can boot from any properly configured bootable USB or external hard drive.
How to Set Boot Menu to Boot from USB
Accessing the Boot Menu or Boot Manager on a Phoenix or Award BIOS to set a computer to Boot from USB can be done by following these steps:
- Insert your bootable USB flash drive into the computer, and reboot.
- During the system post, tap the F11 key (or the key your specific board manufacturer specifies) to access the Boot Menu.
Note: The key to access your Boot Menu may vary. Commonly used BIOS Boot Menu keys include F2, F10, F11, and ESC.
- Use the up/down arrow keys to select the Hard Disk option from the menu and press Enter to confirm.
- In the next menu, use the up/down arrow keys to select your Bootable USB from the list, and then press Enter.
Note: If your USB device is not listed, you may need to set a boot flag on the partition to mark it as active. You can use tools like GParted (for Linux users) or diskpart (for Windows) to set the flag and ensure your USB is detected as bootable.
- Once properly configured, reboot your system. If all goes well, you should be presented with a boot screen from your USB drive containing your operating system (such as Linux).
USB Boot Manager - Linux Boot from USB
Once your system has booted from the USB flash drive, you can proceed to run Linux or any other operating system installed on the USB.
Note: Ensure that your USB drive is formatted in a compatible file system, such as FAT32 or exFAT. You can use popular tools such as YUMI, Universal USB Installer, Rufus, or Etcher to create bootable USBs for Linux or other operating systems. YUMI and Universal USB Installer are particularly useful for creating multiboot USBs that allow multiple operating systems or utilities to coexist on a single USB drive.
This concludes the steps to access the Boot Menu from a Phoenix Award BIOS and set your computer system to Boot from USB.