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Question

Boot Sequence Problem

Jan 1, 2013 1:48AM PST

I would like to be able to boot via USB but my bios options are as follows: 1st Boot Device - CD/DVD, 2nd Boot Device - main hard drive, 3rd Boot Device - [Disabled] The OS is Win XPsp3 generic computer with Intel board and cpu (circa 2002) What I want to be able to do is restore my operating system and all installed apps which I have cloned onto a USB thumb drive. This is to be used if the need should arise where I have to reformat my main hard drive. My Dell laptop boot sequence lists USB Storage Device as one of the boot sequences. Is there anyway to put USB device as an option into the Bios and if not how would I go about using the cloned thumb drive.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Without changing the motherboard?
Jan 1, 2013 1:53AM PST

No.

The idea of an extensible BIOS has only occurred in the past 2 years. Well it was thought up long ago but it's taken years to get here.

I do use CloneZilla off a bootable CD that I can restore from an external USB drive but so far I don't see it worth the effort to put CloneZilla onto the bootable USB drive along with the backup image. I'm sure someone will try to do that.
Bob

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Re: motherboard change.
Jan 1, 2013 3:13AM PST

I plan on discarding this old computer at the end of this year or very early next year. So I don't plan on doing any upgrading, just want to keep this one up and running until I get a new one built. (The Cloning that I just completed was done after reformatting the main drive and installing all of the necessary drives and many programs, running AVAST, AVG, Malwarebyes, SuperantiSpyware, defraging, and doing my best to make things as clean as possible) Question: if the necessity should arise that I need to reformat my main hard drive, using a Windows CD to boot up and do the reformatting, would I need to install windows and then install clonezilla's backup of my system and apps. I can clone my current system and apps to an internal slave drive or even to a partitioned part of my main hard drive. Would I be able to use the recovery section of clonezilla without first installing clonezille after installing windows OS?

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What is this "installing clonezilla"?
Jan 1, 2013 3:21AM PST

I've never installed Clonezilla. It's a bootable CD/USB (depends on system) and not something I install.
Bob

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re:installing clonezilla
Jan 3, 2013 10:17AM PST

Sorry about being so slow in responding. I guess I misled you. As far as Clonezilla I have had some issues. First one was I had problems in downloading and particularly in unzipping it. I finally got that done but unfortunately now my CD/DVD burner is not working properly so I am not going to make a bootable CD. I do have other bootable CD's. When I was on Clonezilla's website the more I read the more confused I got about what and why I was to use Clonezilla. Since my last post I have backed up my C drive using a backup program to my slave drive and to a partition part of my C drive.