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    T61 BIOS and Booting on FlashDrives

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by rWAVEL, Aug 21, 2007.

  1. rWAVEL

    rWAVEL Newbie

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    As I patiently wait for general availability of the T61 4:3 14.1", I was curious whether the BIOS allows for booting off flashdrives? If so, has anyone put Linux on an 8Gb USB flashdrive and if so, what about performance? I was considering many different O/S configurations, each on its own flashdrive due to price. An easy swap of thumb drives, a re-boot and a new configuration. Does this make sense?
     
  2. lowspeed

    lowspeed Notebook Evangelist

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    I'm curious too.

    But you can't just get any usb flash drive and use it as the booting drive as the write operations will kill it. (it won't last long)

    You need an SSD level usb drive. (or express card)



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  3. LaptopGuru

    LaptopGuru Notebook Evangelist

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    My SSD ExpressCard does show up in the boot order when I press F12 on bootup. I have not installed an OS on it (yet) though.
     
  4. chefnix

    chefnix Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes, most BIOSs have had the option to boot from a USB for a while now. I had it back on my T40p as well (that was back around 2002, I believe). And as for putting Linux on a USB drive, it's definitely doable:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB

    I've only used USB-booted versions of Gentoo and SystemRescueCd, but I'm sure with a little digging, you'll find something a closer to what your looking for.