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Dani
Asked: 2009-05-02 05:59:14 +0800 CST

Has anyone managed to install fresh OS from flash drive?

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I am considering to avoid purchase new machines with optical drives. The only caveat is the OS installation which can be messy - to open the case and temporarily hook up DVD which often does not worth the trouble comparing to the price of a drive.

Has anyone tried to install an os from thumb drive? What are the pitfalls? Which tools/guides did you use?

Please also mention the hardware(motherboard etc.) you used

installation operating-system flash-drive

7 Answers

  1. Lots of linux distros have 'Live' images that will boot off of flash and allow you to install from them.

    If you just want to cut down on optical drives, you could get a USB optical drive and boot off of that (presuming machines with relatively modern BIOS).

    Installing off of flash drives can still be handy though - USB optical drives don't fit too comfortably on your keychain.

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  2. I installed Windows Vista from a 320 GB Western Digital Passport Elite to an optical-less GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P system not long ago. I followed these simple instructions and the install went without a hitch. The main drawback was the install was quite slow (rough guess maybe 3-4x slower), before the initial splash choice I was beginning to consider the system had hung. I would recommend a much faster drive (and maybe newer/alternative OS :).

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  3. I have successfully installed Windows 7 (Beta and RC) from a flash driver, its easy and quick.

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  4. You can turn most ISO's into a bootable flash drive using this project unetbootin it has worked really well for me

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  5. Yep, I have installed a couple of flavours of Linux from Flash disks in the past, although to be honest they weren't that much quicker.

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  6. I regularly install Linux distros from the flash boot options. A few windows install have also been done from USB keys too although they can be messy if you are using small keys requiring tftp servers.

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  7. I have done both Vista and Windows Server 2008 from a USB drive. It was pretty simple to get setup. You can Google for lots of sites that have How-Tos for making a USB key bootable.

    The motherboards I've done it on are a couple of recent ASUS boards and a SuperMicro server board (don't have the model handle, but pretty new one). I think most recent motherboards (2 year and newer) should have a boot to USB option in the BIOS.

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