3000 SFF USB Booting Options

Re: Is there a way to make the PC load the distro through a USB port and have it start that way every time? I do want to keep windows on the main boot drive in the PC for any updates

try temporarily disconnect main drive and only have USB with OS plugged in.  does PC auto boot from OS on USB?

if not, need to install the linux on a small 2.5 ssd and install inside SFF and load the linux on it.  if you have two bootable drives and linux drive is the default one pc would boot from it automatically after a set grace time on dual boot screen

@redxps630​ 

Thanks for the reply but that seems a little over complicated once its inside the arcade cabinet. I know on the old bios version this was much easier .... make the USB first in the boot sequence and it worked .... in the newer version of the bios this seems so much harder. I want to use this SFF but if its not going to work the way I want to I may have to look for another PC from the rival "L" brand that I have used in the past and seemed to do what I want to do now.

AW

Re: I do want to keep windows on the main boot drive in the PC for any updates to windows

the UEFI bios of modern Dell has Windows boot manager all set up to point to boot from the main drive where Windows is installed (this is automatically done when Windows 10 was installed originally).  In order to automatically boot from USB the boot manager EFI link needs to modified.  It can be set up to ignore the main drive and boot from OS on USB.

@redxps630​ 

Thats exactly what Im looking to do. Is there written or visual instructions on how to do this anywhere? It would make this project so much easier if I can do exactly what you just said above. When the cabinet is turned on it will boot to the game/emulation process and once I do a shut down of that distro my hope is it will boot right into windows if I need to do any updates and such.

https://superuser.com/questions/1338643/how-do-i-change-the-uefi-boot-order-from-within-windows-10