Recovering from an electrical surge

[Vigaenson]

Several months ago, the new Intel  motherboard that I had used to assemble my desktop became useless because of an electrical surge.

A technician tried to fix it up but after a month he ended saying that it was better to buy another one.

We spent another month trying to to find the same Intel motherboard to replace it but we finally gave up.

I was really needing my computer back because my work was heaping up and getting behind schedule and the morning he offered to solve my problem in a few hours by replacing  my mobo with a MSI 945GCM7-L V2 which he said was similar to the electrocuted one I accepted.

That night I began to recover the backlog and I've been busy with that until some days ago.

During these months of backlog recovery I didn't notice the difference between the Intel and the MSI mobo but now that I have more time left and that I'm trying to do certain things I had planned to do when the unexpected misfortune arose I'm feeling kind of lost because I'm not familiar with its BIOS and kind of uneasy because I've lost contact with the technician who I assume knew more about it than I do.

Is anyone willing to give me a hand with some questions I have for this MSI motherboard?


PS: My first goal is to to remove the  internal HDD that is connected to the MSI mobo, connect it to a HI-SPEED USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE ADAPTER that's  also connected to the MSI mobo to see if  I can boot my computer from it in that way.

I am aware that if I want to do this I will have to make changes in the BIOS but I don't know how to recognize if the BIOS accepts the changes or not.

Can somebody please help me with this please?

[Computer_Commando]

Why do you want to boot Windows from a USB hard drive instead of the internal hard drive (IDE or SATA)?

[rthompson80819]

Also, if you had a good surge protector, preferably a UPS (the better ones all have very good surge protection), your original mother board wouldn't toast.  It's not too late to get one to protect what you have now.

[Vigaenson]

Hi Computer_Commando!!

My reasoning is the following:
I allways wanted to know as much as possible about my motherboards.
One of the things I was planning to do with my Intel mobo was to test her ability to boot from a USB device.
I already have a HI-SPEED USB 2.0 TO SATA/IDE ADAPTER  that has worked in the past.
I've got a SATA HDD that's working with my motherboard and booting my system.
Why not use all these components to find out what I want to know?

rthompson80819
Having a personal UPS is almost useless where I live. We've got an electrical system that protects us of that sort of surges. This was an unexpected  lightning surge that fried my broadband internet modem and the motherboard and spared the rest of the system.

Thank you both for your time
I look forward to hearing  from you
Regards

[patio]

Windows is not designed to boot from USB devices...
This is by design.

It can be done with brute force but we don't recommend nor sponsor it here...

[Computer_Commando]

You can boot an installation disk from USB, same as booting from a bootable CD.  Booting an Operating System like Windows is as Patio describes.  You can boot DOS, I've done it.

As for lightning surges, a UPS is useful, but no guarantee, especially if the surge comes down the center conductor of the coaxial cable.  I live in the lightning capital of the World.  I have a whole house surge protector in the Load Center (fusebox/breaker box) & UPS's on all electronic equipment, except appliances.

[Vigaenson]

  Thank you patio & Computer_Commando
Your mails have been two notable pieces of news.
I'll try to remember both.
Regards

[quaxo]

While Windows isn't designed to do this, there are many Linux distributions out there that are designed to boot from USB devices if you wanted to do it simply to boot an OS for testing purposes.

Many distributions will do this, but I know how to do this from Ubuntu so I will use that as an example. You'll want a minimum 1GB flash drive (or other USB-based drive) to do this. BACK UP ANY DATA ON THE DRIVE BEFORE DOING THIS. It will be erased during the process.

1. Download and burn an Ubuntu CD (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download)

2. Boot the computer from that CD, run the Live version (runs from the CD without replacing any existing operating system on the hard drive).

3. Once booted, connect your USB device.

4. Go to System -> Administration -> Startup disk creator

5. Next, choose your USB device from "Disk to use". Erase the disk (ALL DATA ON THE DEVICE WILL BE DELETED AT THIS POINT).

6. Choose the option you want for saving documents and settings (saved in specified reserved space or discarded on shutdown).

7. Click "Make startup disk", wait for the process to complete, and you now have a bootable USB device with Linux.

[Vigaenson]

  Wow!!
Thank you for this tip  quaxo!!
I must remember this message too.!!

[rogerlewis]

you don't have to do all that,  just download the Universal-USB-Installer from here http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/ and follow the instructions. easy

[rogerlewis]

after you have the OS on the usb plug it in and restart the computer. During the post on my computer i press F8 and a list of options comes up asking what i want to boot from, choose the usb drive and press enter if you don't have the option of F8 you will have to change your bios

[quaxo]

you don't have to do all that,  just download the Universal-USB-Installer from here http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/ and follow the instructions. easy

That only eliminates the burning of the disc. He still has to download some version of Linux to make that work.

[Vigaenson]

Hi rogerlewis & quaxo !!!
I just now found your messages because a health problem kept me away from this forum during most of October.
Thank you for your comments.