Trying to boot from USB

[Sophicidal]

Howdy!

I've inherited a desktop and don't have the password so I'm using ophcrack on my flash drive.

I got everything ready, used Tazusb and burned the ISO, now I'm having trouble booting it.

I went into BIOS and started messing with the boot settings.
It doesn't have usb in the boot device priority menu, but has the option to boot USB devices first. Even after I enabled both USB boot and Boot Usb Devices First
 it's still not booting Ophcrack.

I'm in a pickle, fellas.

[Calum]

Your best bet would be to boot from a Windows disk, wipe the drive and start with a fresh install.
We can't assist here with cracking passwords for any reason.

[Sophicidal]

Your best bet would be to boot from a Windows disk, wipe the drive and start with a fresh install.
We can't assist here with cracking passwords for any reason.

That's fine and dandy but if that's the case I'll be installing ubuntu so I need to know how to boot from usb anyway.

[Calum]

You just select it from the list of boot devices, or set USB as the first boot device.
You'll need to first make the USB drive bootable, you don't burn the Ubuntu ISO to the USB drive as "burning" is what you would do to transfer the ISO to a CD or DVD.  Here are instructions to make a bootable Ubuntu stick.

[Sophicidal]

You just select it from the list of boot devices, or set USB as the first boot device.
You'll need to first make the USB drive bootable, you don't burn the Ubuntu ISO to the USB drive as "burning" is what you would do to transfer the ISO to a CD or DVD.  Here are instructions to make a bootable Ubuntu stick.

I've done all that, my friend.

My dilemma is that the usb isn't in my list of boot devices.

[Computer_Commando]

USB booting may not be fully supported on the desktop you inherited.  Can't you burn a CD & boot from that?

[patio]

Just so you know without a crowbar and a day's work Windows will refuse to boot from an external HDD...but i  guess you figured that part out by now.
Best thing to test would be the suggestions above with Linux...

[skeen]

As mentioned, yumi is an easy way to make a bootable flash drive with tons of linux distros and other tools.
Some BIOS won't recognize a flash drive as a USB device but as hard drive. Poke around in your BIOS and see if your flash drive is showing up as a hard drive.  Sometimes you'll see your flash drive sitting below the hard drive in the boot order.  Just move it above your hard drive(s) and your good to go.
Also as mentioned, why not just burn a linux distro onto a disk?
I'm new here, why is unlocking windows password off limits? Anyone with malicious intents can easily circumvent it and access the data anyway. 

[Calum]

I'm new here, why is unlocking windows password off limits? Anyone with malicious intents can easily circumvent it and access the data anyway. 

Bypassing the password is, in some instances, OK.  Using a utility such as ophcrack which, I believe, will show the current password, is a no.  Please see the forum rules for more information, there's a link to an article which may be helpful in that instance.