Tag Archives: boot from usb

Booting USB: Boot VMware Guest from USB

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KB ID 0000250

Problem

Booting USB: Last week I wrote an article about installing Windows PE on a USB thumb drive, after making several trips across the room to test my progress by booting the spare PC with said USB drive, I thought “there must be a simpler way to do this?”.

VMware Workstation guest VM’s do not support booting from USB devices, (its not built into their “BIOS”). However there’s nothing to stop you booting to CD then using that to boot to USB.

Booting USB

1. Download the PLoP Boot manager.

2. When you have downloaded the .zip file extract it, and inside you will find an ISO image called plpbt.iso that’s all we need you can get rid of everything else.

3. Set your virtual machine to use this .iso file as its CD drive.

4. Connect your USB drive to the guest VM by clicking VM > Removable Devices > The device you wish to connect > Connect.

5. Boot the VM with your PLoP CD, image and select USB from the boot options.

 

 

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Boot from USB Drive fails with “Cannot get bank X parameters” error

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KB ID 0000501 

Problem

Seen on an HP ML115 while booting to a USB Drive (a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 4GB drive).

Error:
Cannot get bank 2 parameters.
Warning: Bank 2 partition type invalid. Ignoring.
Panic: No usable banks found.

Solution

1. Reboot the server and enter the BIOS.

2. Locate the USB Mass Storage Device Configuration > USB Settings and change the emulation from [Auto] to [Hard Disk].

3. Be aware if you have other hard drives in this machine, you will need to ensure the USB drive appears BEFORE them in the HDD boot order.

 

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