Hi All,

Anybody know if it is possible to boot from a USB Key ? I've got a couple lying about and would like to try to see if I could boot any machine off one of them with a lightweight OS installed. I.e. bang it in, power the machine up using the key and then use the software installed on the key to get me email etc.

Cheers

Ian

Hi Ian,

Been thinking about this too as some of the lads here @ work have them. You can get USB drivers for DOS, but these tend to be specific to devices (i.e. seperate ones for mice, keyboards, CD-ROM's) and provided by the individual manufacturer.

So, they first problem is find a DOS USB driver for you key.

The next problem is how to tell your PC to boot from the USB device directly? If there's no option in the BIOS, then you're stuffed and the only alternative is to boot from floppy/CD and load the drivers for the USB key from there.

Stefan