You have a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, now you need to make sure that the computer can boot from them.
There are 2 ways to boot your computer from a DVD or USB flash drive:
- Selecting a device in the boot menu
- Changing Boot Priority in BIOS
Each method has pros and cons.
If you need, for example, to install Windows, then it is more convenient to choose the first method. And if you constantly work with boot disks, then the second method is more convenient.
Features of choosing a device in the boot menu
- On older computers (motherboards) the function is missing. In this case, you will have to change the priority in the BIOS.
- When you select a device in the menu, the computer boots from this device 1 time. This is convenient when installing Windows - you do not need to return the boot from the HDD after the first reboot.
Features of changing the priority in the BIOS
- Works on both new and old computers.
- The priority is constantly changing, i.e. valid until the next change, and not one download as is the case with the menu. This is not very convenient when installing Windows from a USB flash drive, you have to return the boot from the HDD after the first reboot.
How do I enter the boot menu or BIOS?
There is no universal button for entering the boot menu or entering the BIOS. It all depends on the manufacturer of the computer (motherboard), they are all different - the keys are also different. The most correct way to find the right key is to read the instructions from the computer (motherboard). For some of the most common boards - the keys are listed below.
There is only one time when you need to press these keys - during the self-test immediately after turning on the computer (English - Power-On Self-Test or POST). If you do not go into details, POST lasts from turning on the computer until the operating system starts loading (the appearance of a logo or OS selection menu). The POST pass looks like this:
The screen displays a prompt: Press DEL to run Setup which means - press DEL to enter BIOS Setup... DEL is the most common key, but there are many others - more on that below.
During POST, a graphical splash screen may appear with the name of the manufacturer of the computer or motherboard.
Boot Menu Keys and Quick Start Guide
As noted above, each manufacturer has its own key to enter the boot menu. Here is a small list of the most common ones:
The boot menu looks something like this:
You just have to select the desired device from the list. If everything is done correctly, the disk or flash drive is written correctly, the download / installation should start.
BIOS keys and a quick guide to changing the boot priority
To enter BIOS Setup, use the key corresponding to the manufacturer of the computer or motherboard, here is a small list of them:
Acer (Aspire, Altos, Extensa, Ferrari, Power, Veriton, TravelMate): | F2 or Del |
Acer (old models): | F1 or Ctrl+Alt+Esc |
F2 or Del |
|
Compaq (Deskpro, Portable, Presario, Prolinea, Systempro): | |
Compaq (old models): | F1, F2, F10, or Del |
Dell (Dimension, Inspiron, Latitude, OptiPlex, Precision, Vostro, XPS): | |
Dell (old and rare models): | Ctrl+Alt+Enter or Fn+Esc or Fn+F1 or Del or Reset twice |
ECS (Elitegroup) | Del or F1 |
eMachines (eMonster, eTower, eOne, S-Series, T-Series): | Tab or Del |
eMachines (some older models): | |
Fujitsu (Amilo, DeskPower, Esprimo, LifeBook, Tablet): | |
Hewlett-Parkard (HP Alternative, Tablet PC): | F2 or Esc or F10 or F12 |
Hewlett-Parkard (OmniBook, Pavilion, Tablet, TouchSmart, Vectra): | |
Lenovo (3000 Series, IdeaPad, ThinkCentre, ThinkPad, ThinkStation): | F1 or F2 |
Lenovo (older models): | Ctrl+Alt+F3, Ctrl+Alt+Ins or Fn+F1 |
MSI (Micro-Star) | |
F2, F10 or Del |
|
Sony (VAIO, PCG-Series, VGN-Series): | F1, F2 or F3 |
Toshiba (Portege, Satellite, Tecra): | F1 or Esc |
You will find less common hotkeys for entering BIOS.
In addition to the fact that there are several major BIOS manufacturers (AMI, Phoenix - Award), so also computer (motherboard) manufacturers modify the BIOS for a specific model. As a result, it is impossible to create a universal instruction even for changing one function (boot priority); there will be differences on each computer. You can only roughly show how this is done, and look for the exact instructions in the documentation for the computer (motherboard).
To navigate the BIOS and change settings, use the arrows on the keyboard, the Enter and + \- .
AMI
Move the arrows to the tab Boot, go to Boot Device Priority:
In the following figure, we see that the boot is sequentially performed: from the floppy drive (Floppy Drive), hard disk (Hard Drive), and the third device is not used (Disabled).
If we want to boot from a DVD, we need to change the priorities so that the first device is the DVD drive. Use the arrows to switch to the first device ( 1st Boot Device), press Enter and select in the menu that appears CDROM... With a flash drive, everything is the same.
Push F10 and confirm the exit with saving (Save and Exit) by choosing .
Phoenix-Award
We enter Advanced BIOS Features:
If we want to boot from a DVD, we need to change the priorities so that the first device is the DVD drive.
Use the arrows to switch to the first device ( First Boot Device), change to CDROM... With a flash drive, everything is the same.
Push F10 and confirm the exit with saving (Save and Exit).
Do you know other keys or want to clarify? Comments are open!
Enjoy your use!
Reading time: 40 min
Boot Menu is a menu that allows you to select the device that the system will process first. This function is actively used to replace operating systems and to carry out diagnostics, such as RAM with MemTest.
This function is extremely convenient, as it is intended for a one-time start of the equipment as the main carrier. This same function is required when installing Windows, since it does not require changing boot priorities in the BIOS.
After completing the actions required to enter the menu, all devices that are connected at the current time in the computer, and with which the program is potentially likely to start, will be displayed.
Unfortunately, there is no one denominator in the question of entering the described menu, since there is no hard standard in this industry yet. Nevertheless, there is a dependency between the manufacturer and the actions required to launch the Boot Menu, which will be discussed in detail in the article.
General information on entering the Boot Menu
Boot Menu is used to specify from which device the program should be launched. Of course, the BIOS already has such functionality, but for one-time use, for example, a program, it is better to use the boot menu.
An interesting question is how to call up the boot menu on the motherboard because there are no standards in this regard. Each manufacturer uses different options. Most often, a hint appears on how to go to a section. In general, the buttons F8, F9, F11, F12 and Esc are used.
To launch the desired menu, press the key corresponding to your brand of motherboard during system startup. Often, several of the above buttons are used. You can get more accurate information by going to the section that corresponds to the manufacturer of your computer.
There are also slight differences in starting the required menu in candy bars and laptops that have Windows 8 and higher preinstalled.
How to enter the boot menu on a netbook? - To complicate matters, laptop computers might not use a full shutdown, but instead hibernate. This option is quite justified, since it returns the PC to a working state faster, but is not suitable for entering the menu. All you need to do is turn off the netbook completely, hold down Shift, click on "Shutdown". If this does not help, then you need to configure the "Power supply" section.
Launching Boot Menu in Windows 8, 8.1, 10
The thing is that personal computers in this configuration most often use hibernation mode instead of the usual shutdown. Often this has a positive effect on the boot time of the system, and the processes launched in the previous session are restored, but in this case this method is not suitable for us, to do this, use one of the following options:
1.Restart the computer using the corresponding option in the menu, you do not just need to turn off the button and turn it on again, for the reason just described;
2. At the moment when you press the "Shutdown" button, hold down the Shift key, thanks to this procedure, the PC will turn off fully, then press the desired key at the time of startup;
3. You may need to disable Fast Startup.
- Open the Start menu;
- Go to "Control Panel";
- Select the tile with the name "Power supply";
- Follow the link "Actions of the power buttons";
- Disable the "Quick Start" item.
Entering the Boot Menu for the manufacturer Acer
This manufacturer on all configurations of computers, all-in-ones and laptops uses the same key to enter the Boot Menu, this button is F12. A distinctive feature is only an item in the BIOS or UEFI, which includes the necessary handler, that is, nothing will happen until you enable this function, sometimes it works by default, for this:
1.Go into BIOS, for this boot press F2 or Del;
2. Find the item "F12 Boot Menu";
3. You need to replace the value with "Enabled";
4. Restart your computer.
After performing these manipulations, the boot menu should become available by pressing F12.
Boot Menu for Asus
For the vast majority of computers at the base of which this platform is located, you need to press F8 to launch the Boot Menu, but with laptops everything is a little more complicated, there is some division here.
For most Asus laptops, the Esc button is used, but this is more likely for more or less modern PCs, and for models that start with K and most with X, F8 can be used.
Entering the Boot Menu in Lenovo Laptops
It is quite easy to go to the menu of interest thanks to the F12 key, it is used in all models. This situation also applies to monoblocks from the same manufacturer. A distinctive feature is a special button located on the case, next to the standard inclusion, usually a circular arrow is drawn on it, by clicking on it you can get to the menu of special options for starting the system.
Information on other manufacturers
For most manufacturers, it makes no sense to describe the instructions for switching to the Boot Menu, since the only difference is the required key, and everything else works according to the standard scheme, so:
- Dell, Toshiba laptops and Gigabyte motherboards - F12;
- Samsung laptops and Intel motherboards - Esc;
- HP Laptops - F9;
- AsRock and MSI Motherboards - F
This should be enough to launch the Boot Menu with any configuration of the computer, if you have a little-known manufacturer, you should use the instructions that should be presented on the manufacturer's website.
If you still have questions on the topic "How to enter the Boot Menu on a laptop and computer?", You can ask them in the comments
Boot Menu can be called when you turn on your computer or laptop by pressing the corresponding key. The key for calling the Boot Menu (aka the boot menu) depends on the manufacturer of the laptop, or the motherboard of your PC. If you have already logged into BOIS, the boot menu is invoked in much the same way. Moreover, this menu is related to the system BIOS (UEFI). This is just a function.
In fact, this is a very useful thing. The boot menu is a window where you can select a device to boot your computer. For example, select the CD / DVD drive from the menu, and boot the computer from the bootable disk. Or it will boot from a USB flash drive. You probably know that to install or restore Windows, check your computer for viruses from the Live CD, or to run other programs, you need to boot your computer or laptop from a bootable disk or flash drive.
Since the key depends on the manufacturer of the motherboard, or laptop, below I will consider different options for entering the boot menu for individual manufacturers of these same laptops and motherboards. But first, let's figure out some of the nuances in Windows 10 and Windows 8.
Boot Menu in Windows 10, Windows 8 and 8.1. Several nuances
If you have Windows 7 installed, then everything should work out right away. But to enter the Boot Menu on a computer with Windows 10 or Windows 8 (8.1) installed, you will most likely need to perform several additional steps.
The thing is that after turning off a computer, or a laptop on these operating systems, it does not completely turn off. This is for fast loading on re-enable. Therefore, the boot menu may not open.
If the Boot Menu does not open, then try the following:
- Restart your computer and press the required key. Do just a reboot, not turn it off and on.
- In Windows 8, try holding down the Shift key and shutting down the computer while holding that key. Then turn on your computer and press the key to enter the Boot Menu.
If this does not help, then you need to disable Fast Startup. We do this (for example, Windows 10):
I hope everything worked out.
Boot Menu on ASUS laptops
On my not-so-new ASUS laptop (model K56CM), you need to press Esc to enter the Boot Menu. If Esc doesn't work, try pressing F8, or F9.
The boot menu itself looks like this:
As you can see, I have three devices there. This means that I can boot my ASUS laptop from an SSD drive (by default), a USB flash drive (it is already connected to the laptop) and a DVD drive. We just select the required option and the download will go. Selecting "Enter Setup" will open the BIOS.
Boot menu on Acer laptops
If you have a laptop from the manufacturer Acer, then immediately press the F12 key when turning it on.
But, Boot Menu on Acer may not work. It must be activated in the BIOS settings, which can be entered by pressing the F2 key. There you need to find the item "F12 Boot Menu" and enable it (put Enabled). This setting is located on the "Main" tab.
After rebooting and pressing the F12 key, the boot menu we need should open.
How to enter Boot Menu on Lenovo laptop?
Use the F12 key when turning on the laptop. Almost all Lenovo laptops use this key.
This manufacturer has a little trick. I'll tell you now.
To enter the Boot Menu on an HP laptop, press the Esc key. But the menu won't open. You also need to press F9 in the startup menu.
After that, a window should appear with different options for loading the laptop.
Boot Menu keys on PC (for motherboards) and other laptops
In the last section of this article, I want to collect information that will be useful to you when you call the boot menu on stationary computers with different motherboards and laptops, which I did not write about above.
Motherboards:
- MSI - F11 key
- ASUS - F8
- Gigabyte - F12
- Intel - Esc
- AsRock - F11
Laptops:
- Boot Menu on a laptop DEL is called by the key - F12
- Toshiba - F12
- Samsung - Esc
- Sony Vaio - F11
- Packard Bell - F12
I would be glad if this information is useful to you. Write reviews in the comments, ask questions!
Sometimes it becomes necessary to boot a computer (or a laptop - there is no difference) bypassing the installed operating system, from external media: CD / DVD disks or flash drives. These can be so-called LiveCDs or other utilities for recovery, testing and other needs.
1. Insert the flash drive into the USB connector or insert the disk into the drive. In the case of a disk drive, you can open it only when the computer is running (we will not talk about the method using a needle or hairpin).
2. Turn on the computer. A window appears with a splash screen (usually the motherboard logo) and at the bottom of the screen, as a rule, it will be written which key must be pressed on the keyboard in order to download Bios and get into the Boot Menu... You need to have time to press the desired key before the operating system starts loading. Otherwise, you will have to restart your computer and try again.
Advice: press the desired key repeatedly as soon as the monitor screen lights up when turned on.
If you need to boot from external media one time, then you can use the quick Boot Menu (settings will not be remembered). If you plan to boot from disks and flash drives regularly, you can configure Bios. I do not advise doing this to boot from flash drives, because then at startup the system will first try to boot from flash drives (if you forgot to remove them), and only then access your hard drive. This will take additional time when turning on the computer and loading the operating system. It was a lyrical digression, let's get back to practical actions.
In most cases, on motherboards from different manufacturers, start buttons Bios and Boot Menu various.
3.1. For Launch Boot Menu usually one of the keys on the top row of the keyboard is used. Most often: Esc, F1, F2, F7, F11, F12 .
The Boot Menu looks like this:
The list contains all the media from which you can try to boot: floppy drives, hard disks, flash drives (in this case HL-DT-STDVDRAM GT40N is a floppy drive and WDC WD5000BPVT-60HXZT3 - hard drive, if you insert a USB flash drive, then it will appear with this list). Use the arrows on the keyboard to select the desired media and press Enter... It will boot from the specified media, but our choice will not be remembered. If you need to download again, the operation will have to be repeated.
3.2. If for some reason you could not boot from a disk or flash drive using the description from paragraph 3.1., Then go to Bios settings.
The most common keys used for Boot Bios See also the top row keys of the keyboard: Del, F2, Esc, F10, F12 .
We get into Bios. The figure shows one of the options for its appearance. The interface on different motherboards may differ, but the essence of the required settings remains the same.
Find the section Boot(or Boot Menu). We go to it by pressing the arrow keys - left-right - and press Enter to expand the section.
Select with arrows Boot Option # 1(may be called First Boot Priority or similar) and press Enter... A selection window opens. Here we indicate which device we want to boot from first. Select and click Enter .
Similarly, you can assign the device from which we will boot in the second order, etc.
If you did not find yours in the list of devices (for example, if we are going to boot from a USB flash drive, and the computer decided that this is another hard drive). Then you should go to the section Hard drive priorities... All hard drives will be presented there and you can set the boot order for them in the same way.
When all the necessary changes have been made, click F10 (which actually calls the command Save and Exit - Save and Exit) and confirm saving the settings by selecting Yes(sometimes you need to enter a letter y from the keyboard).
That's all. Good luck!
What is boot-menu
Probably everyone knows that in order to boot from a floppy drive or flash drive, you need to set the order of devices to boot in BIOS. For example, to install Windows XP from a disc on a computer, you need to boot from this disc first. To do this, you need to put the floppy drive in the BIOS as the first device to boot.
However, you can not go into the BIOS and change nothing there. It is enough to immediately after turning on the computer, press the boot menu call key (boot menu) and select the one from which to boot from the list of devices that appears. Selecting a boot device from the boot menu does not affect the BIOS settings in any way. That is, this menu affects exactly a specific boot, and if you do not call it afterwards, then the computer or laptop will boot as configured in the BIOS.
How to call the boot menu - BIOS boot menu keys
So, we figured out what a boot menu is in BIOS. Now I will tell you what hotkeys it is called with. There is no standard here. It all depends on the manufacturer of the motherboard of the PC or laptop and on the version of the BIOS installed there. For example, calling the boot menu asus differs from how to call the boot menu on a laptop an acer or sony vaio.
In most cases, the key to open the boot device selection menu is F12 , but some manufacturers use their own keyboard shortcuts. Particular attention can be focused on the boot menu samsung and HP. To get to the boot menu of a Samsung laptop, you need to press Esc (only once!). If you click on Esc at least twice, the boot menu will close before it can be opened. Therefore, you need to calculate and clearly get in time by pressing the boot menu hotkey. This can be quite difficult to do without some skill.
The boot menu call on HP notebooks is also specific. To do this, you first need to press Esc , after which the service menu of the laptop will appear. In it, we already select the desired item (by pressing the hotkey). To call the HP boot menu, press F9 .
For some manufacturers, the device for loading in the menu is selected with the cursor keys, for others, it is necessary to press the key with a number indicating the serial number of the device in the list.
Below is a table that is easy to understand. This is a table of correspondence of hot keys for calling the menu for selecting the boot device, motherboard manufacturer and BIOS.
Yes, and a final clarification. In some cases, the hotkeys for calling the boot menu are disabled by default in BIOS. To be able to use the boot menu, you must enable it in the BIOS settings. This function is usually called F12 Boot Menu ... To enable this function, you need to set its value to Enabled .
In addition to the boot menu call keys, the table contains the keys for entering the BIOS.
| Manufacturer / device | BIOS version | Boot menu key | BIOS key |
| Mat. MSI boards | AMI | F11 | Del |
| Mat. Gigabyte boards | Award | F12 | Del |
| Mat. Asus boards | AMI | F8 | Del |
| Mat. Intel boards | Phoenix-Award | Esc | Del |
| Mat. AsRock boards | AMI | F11 | Del |
| Asus laptops | Esc | F2 | |
| Acer laptops | Inside H2O | F12 | F2 |
| Acer laptops | Phoenix | F12 | F2 |
| Dell laptops | Dell | F12 | F2 |
| HP laptops | Esc -> F9 | Esc -> F10 | |
| Lenovo laptops | AMI | F12 | F2 |
| Packard Bell laptops | Phoenix Secure Core | F12 | F2 |
| Samsung laptops | Phoenix Secure Core | Esc (once, pressing again exits the menu) |
F2 |
| Sony Vaio laptops | Inside H2O | F11 | F2 |
| Toshiba laptops | Phoenix | F12 | F2 |
| Toshiba laptops | Inside H2O | F12 | F2 |
