Using an iPod or USB stick as bootable media

I tried to use my iPod shuffle as bootable media. Tools->Bootable Media Builder and selecting my iPod seemed to work fine. I also changed the BIOS settings so the iPod was first in the boot order list. But when trying to boot from it I just got a cursor in the upper left corner and besides that a black screen.

Any ideas why it didn't work?


Not that important but sometimes it may be handy to be able to boot from a USB stick. I shall for example upgrade my BIOS now and burn a DVD (don't have any CD's) with that 1.8MB iso I have downloaded. Feels a bit silly though to use a DVD for that and if disasters happens in the future it may be handy to know how to make a USB stick bootable with some disk tools (have no diskette drive on my notebook).

 

You can use Acronis Rescue Media Builder to make a bootable USB Flash drive. Just format the drive as either FAT16 or FAT32 depending on what works best on your computer and then run builder to install on it. You won't be able to install BIOS updates from it though, it will just run the acronis tools.

If you're familiar with Linux/Knoppix/etc. you can use GRUB on your flash drive and add whatever you want to boot (DOS, FreeDOS, BartPE, Knoppix, etc.)

 

But that was exacty what I tried but the PC didn't boot even though I made the iPod first in the list of boot devices in BIOS. If I can find out what the problem is I can probably find out how to use it for other purposes also.

 

I'm not sure about booting from an iPod. Do you have a regular USB Flash drive you can try? If that works on your system then you'll at least have a starting point.

 

No I don't have that but I think I just give up, it's not that important even though it would be nice. Thanks anyway!

 

Actually I just succeded by following the instruction on this web page:
http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php

After doing that I used Acronis to create a bootable media on the USB and it worked.