Reader Mail: Hard Drive And USB Booting Issues With Linux And Windows

My first guess here is that it’s not the OSes that are the problem but rather the boot order for the computer itself.

Assuming the computer has BIOS (meaning not UEFI, which is unlikely), what most people do when they go to install Linux on a flash drive is go into the BIOS and purposely modify the boot order so that USB will boot first.

Unfortunately, it’s the case in many BIOSes that when you do that, the boot order is then changed so that the network card is set as #2 in boot priority.

For example, a "normal" boot order for most PCs is this:

1. Optical Drive
2. Hard Drive
3. Network Card (sometimes labeled as PXE)
4. USB

In some BIOSes, sometimes people end up with this when they shuffle around the order:

1. USB
2. Network Card
3. Optical Drive
4. Hard Drive

On some PCs, this type of boot order either will either cause the computer to wait a really long time before the hard drive boots after going through the first 3 boot devices, or the computer won’t boot at all after failing to boot from the network card.

Oh sure, you can pop in a Windows System Restore disc and yes, it will "see" everything on the hard drive. But no matter how many times you do that, the PC still won’t boot correctly because it’s probably "hanging" on the network card as a boot device and fail right there.

For most people, what I’d recommend doing in Aaron’s situation is to check the boot order in the BIOS first, and if the network card is not listed as dead last, it should be modified to be that way. The boot order should be this:

1. Optical Drive
2. USB
3. Hard Drive
4. Network Card

I recommend using this boot order specifically, because the only other boot devices you would want the PC to check for first would be the optical drive or a USB device. If reinstalling an OS, you obviously want the PC to boot from the optical drive on startup. If using an alternative Linux OS installed on USB, you’d want that to boot before the hard drive. With both absent, you want the hard drive to boot.

It’s rare that a home user would want to specifically boot from the network card, hence the reason it should be placed in the boot order as dead last and stay there.