Windows 10: Boot from SD card Reader?

Hey guys/gals, need some help.

We're having a discussion over at DP Review. It's a photography site, but they also have a PC Talk forum. Anyway there's a discussion thread - USB thumb drives vs Card Readers in which we're trying to figure out if Windows will boot from a card reader with a SD card installed?

Basically you install the boot media on the SD card, use a card reader to read and boot from it.

I've never tried or seen this so I may be completely wrong, but I contend that neither Windows nor the BIOS will recognize the card reader as a valid boot drive.

Am I right, wrong? Why?

I'm ADMint over there BTW.

Thanks.

:)

 

Any way to boot the Nokia Booklet 3G from SD(HC) ?

Unfortunately booting solely from SD card is not possible in Booklet 3G. SD card controller is not USB device but attached to PCI bus. BIOS is able to boot only from USB devices. Some Netbooks have their SD card readers attached as USB devices thus allowing
to boot from SD card similarly to any other USB stick.



The only way is to load enough of the OS from HDD/USB-stick to have PCI driver for SD card reader and then continue booting from SD card. For Linux that would mean that bootloader and /boot partition with initrd (having PCI SD card support) should be on
HDD/USB medium and root partition can be in SD card. For Widows things are trickier. You;d have to read a lot about Windows PE and have a lot of time to craft the solution.



Anyway for OS to be stored on SD card you need to have extra boot partition on HDD or USB medium, that BIOS of Booklet is able to read.

 

Windows 10 install 0xc000000e

Let me try again maybe i'm beeing misunderstood...i want to install from an Sd Card to Ssd. I used Media Creation Tool to make my Sd Card bootable and after that boot from it. I succeeded with all of
this, but i got that error when i'm trying to boot from Sd Card.

 

I have installed Linux from an SD Card but have not tried Windows, however when it comes to choosing your boot medium there is only USB, HDD or DVD/CD .....

 

Without a specific boot entry the only way is to install a Linux network daemon on SD card and boot via PXE - it's a long complicated process though.

 

With an USB adapter, it's same as with normal USB pen-drive. Use a 4 GB SD card from a camera and no difference whatsoever, except maybe a bit slower because of old, low grade SD. Even used micro SD > adapter to SD and in USB adapter.

 

It likely depends on what the BIOS thinks the device is? If it shows up like a USB thumb drive it should work. If it requires drivers to even be detected it won't.
I know I wish I could boot from the built in SD Card reader in my laptop but the BIOS does not even see it. It's not listed as a boot option even with a bootable SD card in it.

 

Hi there

the main problem is whether the BIOS recognizes the card reader -- if it doesn't you won't be able to boot DIRECTLY from the SD card reader. You MIGHT be able to create a bootloader on a conventional USB drive and then it can load the OS from the card reader once the drivers have been loaded. Never tried it though.

An interesting idea could be to boot from a Micro SD card in a smart phone !!!!!. If the Bios recognizes the Phone as a USB device then you are in business -- especially these days as you've got 32 and 64 micro SD cards. Windows to Go from a smart phone --- now there's another idea !!!

Cheers
jimbo

 

I don't know about windows but I have a Linux partition manager that boots from and 128 mb SD card on my machines. I don't see why it would not work with modern bios as it just appears as a boot device.
Edit, here is a tool that would make a teaspoon boot :
Plop Boot Manager, PlopKexec Boot Manager

 

Here is the boot menu from my Asus MB.






Here are the screens in the boot tab showing SD card is bootable. That is the reason I used the 128 mb SD card as a bootable partition manager in the first place. There was nothing else I could do with it.

 

Thanks guys. It looks like it basically comes down to what the BIOS thinks of the card reader, and if it even sees it.

That's basically one of the questions there... since the machine has a card reader built in, can they boot from an SD card?

As stated, it just comes down to what the BIOS thinks and does.

Thanks for all the replies. Will link this thread over there.

@ Indianatone, that's good info with the screen shots

Peace *Cool

 

It is possible but it is a dog. The card reader is a USB2 device and sloooow by nature. If it runs, it will run like molasses. Best external option is to run from a fast USB3 stick or a SSD attached bia USB3 or eSata. That I do all the time for Windows and Linux and there is a very small performance penalty..

 

Thanks Wolfgang. That's good info to know *Smile

 

You are welcome. Here are a couple of tutorials I made for installation on a stick and external SSD (fast external HDD is possible but slower).

Install Windows on a stick - or external disk

Install Linux on a stick - very fancy

 

I made a 32 bit and a 64 bit out of 2 sd cards a long time ago, just tried one on this Gateway I set up for Windows 10, worked perfectlly. *Smile

But it does not show up in the bios of the HP 6300.