Boot from USB without BIOS support

Introduction

Want to revive your old, dusty pc by formatting it, but do not have a Bootable CD? Or worse, your CD Drive is destroyed (like mine)? This simple guide will tell you how to modify your windows bootloader to easily boot from USB without BIOS support.

Many old computers do not support booting from usb. Some of them have an option to boot from usb, but it doesn't work. A software called "EasyBCD" is available free of cost, that allows you to control or configure the bootmanager in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. It uses PLoP boot manager. This means that you can even boot from USB in those systems that don't have native support for booting from usb. It also provides other features such as creating a bootable USB, repair the bootloader etc and even provides it's own version of Grub bootloader called the NeoGrub Bootloader.

So let's begin.

Boot from USB without BIOS support

=>Download and install the free version of NeoSmart EasyBCD from here.



=>Run EasyBCD as Administrator by right clicking on the desktop icon and selecting Run as Administrator.

=>Click on Add New Entry. Click on BIOS Extender in the lower right corner. Now click on Install PLoP.





 

 

And that's it! Click on Edit Boot Menu and you will see that a new entry named EasyBCD BIOS Extender has been added alongside your Windows. Click on Save Settings to confirm your settings.



=>Now, the next time you boot into your system, you will see two different options: One for Windows (Windows 7 in our case) and One for EasyBCD BIOS Extender. Click on the EasyBCD BIOS Extender option and hit enter.



=>Plug in your Bootable Pen Drive into one of the USB Slots. Select USB from the menu that shows up and hit enter.





In this way, you should be able to boot from USB without BIOS support in older computers that do not natively support it.

Did we miss something? Was it too difficult to follow? Please tell us in the comments below!