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I did clean installation of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on my ASUS X550C PC a few month ago. But now I need to install Windows 7 on it. I tried to boot the PC from USB with Win7 (my DVD/ROM is not working). In boot options USB is not listed (even when I stick the USB before booting) in BIOS.

This could be related to something other than the OS, but I did clean installations before without problems. And since I'm not good with Linux systems, I decided to ask here. Any help is appreciated.

Thank you!

boot options

security options

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3 Answers 3

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If your USB drive is properly formatted as a bootable drive and has the ISO (installer disk image) file correctly copied onto it, it should show up as a hard drive in your BIOS options when it's connected to a USB port accessible at boot. I like using a free, basic software tool called Rufus for creating bootable USB drives.

Try using a different USB port on the computer (if available), or attempt to boot another computer to which you have access with your USB drive. Exhausting those options, making another attempt at creating a viable bootable USB disk (either with this one or another) is your best option.

Please note that this problem actually has nothing to do with Ubuntu itself as the BIOS are completely separate from the operating system. GRUB may look like another BIOS process during boot-up, but it's actually stored in a separate storage place (usually the boot sector of the primary hard drive) from your BIOS settings (on a chip on the motherboard).

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You don't need to set boot from USB permanently for OS installation (I would say its better NOT to do it by security means).

Instead find a "Boot Menu" keyboard shortcut while your BIOS loads, it might be F8 thru F12 or other - it should be written on the screen somewhere. If it doesn't show - maybe you need to disable option for hiding POST messages, displaying vendor logo, "quiet boot" or some similar.

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This problem is due to your bios/pc, it is not a linux issue.

In some Bios' the USB drives will be listed together with the Harddrives. You probably have better luck finding it in the boot menu, which can usually be accessed by pressing F8, F9 or F12 during boot.

There are Linux Distributions designed for this scenario which offer a bootloader that allows to chainload an usb drive. You would have to boot from cd or Floppy disk though. Ploplinux has such a bootloader iirc, or there is a grub2 super boot disk that might have this option as well.

If the above dont work you could probably try to plug in an external drive on your computer or borrow a CD drive from another pc.

If you have no working drive and usb boot is not working you could try to make a partition for the windows install cd and the diskspace for the future windows installation and add it to grub, however this is for advanced/experienced users only.

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