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Change the Computer's Boot Order
The boot order is the sequence of storage devices that the computer’s hardware checks to find an operating system to boot. Operating systems are usually on the system hard drive, but it can reside on other storage devices and you can determine which device in which to boot your system. Here we will take a look at the different storage devices and their use as bootable devices.
Hard Drive
This is usually the main storage device for most computers and is the first choice for booting if for no other reason than tradition. Many systems have more than one hard drive and each drive can be partitioned into separate logical drives. The master boot record (MBR) on the main boot drive holds a map that indicates where the operating system can be found or provides a boot menu to select an operating system.
SSD
A Solid State Drive will likely replace the hard drive as the standard mass storage device in computers soon. A SSD is made from flash memory and like a thumb drive or media card is fast but currently comparatively expensive. As prices come down the popularity will increase and they will be seen more often in laptops and other computers. They are already popular in tablets.
Optical Drives
CD-ROMs and DVDs can also be used as boot devices and many computers will automatically search an optical drive to see if it is bootable first. When this happens, the user is usually prompted if they want to boot from this device before it actually occurs giving the user the control. This is how computers use restore disks to bring their computer back to factory specs if a fatal crash occurs.
Networks
Rather than load the operating system directly from a local storage device, the operating system can be loaded via a network. The network adapter will request the network server for the OS and then download it to the local system.
USB Device
A USB device can be a thumb drive, media card or an external drive. USB is much faster than it used to be so this is now a viable solution for booting an operating system.
Setting the boot order is done in the computer’s setup program located on the motherboard. It is accessed during the booting process by pressing a single key or combination of keys. This can be very useful if you want to boot one operating system like Windows from one device and Linux from another device.