How to set the BIOS for a bootable pen drive ?

Did you make the USB flash drive bootable? You cannot just plug in a flash drive and boot from it otherwise. This web page at AOMEI should help and this YouTube video. And this wikihow page has more information about making a bootable flash drive. One question, are you trying to boot into Linux or have you another program such as Macrium Reflect you are trying to boot into? 

All you need to do is connect the drive, power up and press F12.  If the system sees the flash drive as bootable, it'll appear in the boot list.  Select it, press Enter and the system will boot.

Be sure your bootable drive is UEFI-compatible, or the system cannot boot from it.

Thank you! We have received the details you shared. We will continue the conversation via private messages as the interactions may include user as well as Dell centric information.

@ejn63 said:

If the system sees the flash drive as bootable, it'll appear in the boot list. 

It appeared in the list in the third position, checked.

@ejn63 said:

Select it.

What do you mean by "select it". It's already checked. If I point at the text, the text box is highlighted and the check mark is removed.

@ejn63 said:

press Enter

That causes the check mark to be removed. Did you mean that?

@ejn63 said:

the system will boot.

What does that mean?

- The BIOS panel will be closed, and the system will restart.

or

- Do everything needed to close the BIOS panel in an orderly manner. The system will then restart, using the pen drive as the OS (That last sentence was my best guess. I've looked in the Dell BIOS panel before, but I haven't actually done anything for many years.)

Thanks

Contents of USB drive

Screenshot shows the contents of the USB pen drive.

Thanks

JOcean  said: 

Did you make the USB flash drive bootable? 

Yes. I think I used the MediaCreationTool.

The two links to web pages were useful. The video is probably the best I've seen.

JOcean  said:

...are you trying to boot into Linux or have you another program such as Macrium Reflect you are trying to boot into? 

Neither. It's for recovery. The video that you mentioned describes it all. It's a last resort.

Thanks

Happy to help out and hoping that gets you going! 

If it still won't boot, temporarily disable secure boot (which is on, if it's the factory install).  That may allow the drive to boot the system.

JOcean  said:

One question, are you trying to boot into Linux or have you another program such as Macrium Reflect you are trying to boot into ?

-------

When I looked at that question yesterday, I thought the reference to "Linux" was for someone who had replaced the Win OS with Linux.

I don't think so fast nowadays, so it was hours later before I realized that you might have been referring to something I used till about 20 years ago - a small partition at the end of the disk that was only used for Linux recovery tools. It had stuff like fsarchiver which was superior to the Win equivalent at that time.

I stopped adding the partition because nothing ever went wrong with my Dells. Lazy and stupid. If I still had such a partition, I would never have needed to reset my Windows recently.

So I'm going to add a Linux partition ASAP. Thanks for that.

The reference to "booting into Macrium" initially sounded like moonshine to me. But a few hours later I thought it would be a great idea - if it were possible. I checked. And it is. So it's done !!! Another thanks for that.

I might not even add the Linux partition if I can boot into Macrium. (And of course, I have Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery.) But I'll need to browse the forums to investigate that.

Thanks