Is it possible to use a SD card to make a boot drive instead of a USB flash drive? None of my flash drives have the space for this but the SD card does, I've used this drive to dual boot linux once, so using it like it was a USB drive should work right? All my attempts do recognize the device.
I've thought of that too, but so far haven't had the courage to try it. I would think the BIOS/UEFI would have to provide for the SD card to boot before it can happen.
I just checked my laptop's Boot configuration and I don't think it's likely to work for me:
Internal CD/DVD Drive
Notebook Hard Drive
USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Drive
USB CD/DVD ROM Drive
Network Adapter (I have that disabled)
USB Floppy (That's disabled also)
It doesn't look like any of these qualify.
However, this particular laptop came with Vista installed (long gone), so it's a bit long in the tooth.
On the other paw, though, check your BIOS and see if the SD card is included in your boot options.
I've checked the BIOS ad I saw that it says USB and "removable devices" so could that technically mean the SD card slot? Because even though I moved the hard drive boot sequence to the very end of the chain it still boots windows 7,. I however have made a theory that I could just use a USB SD card reader in an actual USB port and run the SD card as a USB drive.
There was a recent thread in the Windows 7 or 8 forums about this, but I can't find it now. Bottom line is no, can't be done as BIOS/UEFI/Hardware does not support booting from SD.
Hi there
A Mobile phone with an SD (Micro SDHC) card in it can be recognized as a USB device - in fact it will be recognized as TWO discs if there's a micro SD card in it. You could try that !!! - Install from a PHONE !!!.
I don't think there's any way to BOOT from the INTERNAL SD card reader if you have one of those as it needs its own driver to be loaded by the OS. EXTERNAL card readers should be just fine if they work as standard USB devices - i.e the computer sees them as a USB device which has any software it requires within the firmware of the device.
Cheers
jimbo
It really depends on your hardware. I have a Lenovo X201 and created a recovery drive on a 512mb SD card (using an internal card reader) and can boot from that. Other can't so you just have to try it.
Thanks for all the replies, now just gotta manage booting with a broken screen, because it won't connect to my monitor in the setup phase. Basically my laptop screen is broke so I use it connected to a desktop monitor as a "projector" but since it can't connect before hitting the logon screen I get to try and maneuver everything.
Your title is Using an SD card to install?
But then you ask if you can use it as a boot drive, sooo which is it ?
Quote
