How to Boot Your PC from a USB Stick

If you're lucky, all you need to do to boot your PC from a USB flash drive, regardless of the operating system installed on your PC, is to select the USB flash drive from your UEFI or BIOS boot menu. Make sure the USB flash drive is bootable and then connect it to any USB port on your computer.

Then, start your computer (or restart it if it was already on). Immediately after it starts, when the BIOS/UEFI screen appears, access the boot menu by pressing the appropriate key or keys. Most PC manufacturers use F8, F9, F10, or F11 for this, and many computers show you which key or keys are for the boot menu immediately after you turn them on. However, if you cannot identify the correct key or keys, check the documentation for your computer's motherboard or device manufacturer. The key(s) to access the boot menu should be mentioned in the user manuals.

Once the boot menu appears on the screen, use it to select the USB flash drive you want to boot from and press Enter. Note that the USB flash drive may have various names depen out of g on what your PC or motherboard manufacturer intended. Sometimes it is displayed as Removable Device, sometimes as USB-HDD, and so on.

After you press Enter, your computer should boot from the USB flash drive.


How to Boot from a USB Flash Drive by Modifying UEFI/BIOS Settings

Start by accessing the BIOS/UEFI interface. You should be able to do this by pressing the appropriate key or key combination immediately after turning on your PC. Although your PC or motherboard manufacturer can assign any key to this action, commonly used keys include Delete, F1, F2, F10, and F12. If none of these work, you can find out which key to press from your PC or motherboard manual.

Once you've entered BIOS/UEFI, browse through its configuration options until you find a page called Boot or similar. There you should see the boot order used by your computer. In this list, you need to choose the USB flash drive as the first device used for system startup. Note that the USB option may have different names on your PC: look for Removable Devices, USB-HDD, or similar names. Moving the USB flash drive to the top of the list is usually done by pressing the +, -, F5, or F6 keys. Your BIOS/UEFI interface should display some useful information on this topic.




IMPORTANT: If your PC uses UEFI, you might not be able to make the previous settings. In this case, you must first (temporarily) disable the Secure Boot option. This option may also have other names depen out of g on the manufacturer's preference: Legacy Boot or Legacy Support, CSM or Launch CSM, and so on. Choose to enable options that start with Legacy or contain CSM in their names. What is your preferred method for booting from a USB flash drive?

Now you know a few different ways to boot your computer using a USB flash drive. Which is your favorite? Do you use the options included in Windows 10 and Windows 11, or do you prefer to use BIOS/UEFI? Were you able to boot your PC from a USB drive? If not, what went wrong? Tell us in the comments section below.