Bootable flash drive for surface pro 4

mylesc1234

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I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to computer so im here asking you guys hoping to get some assistance. I have seen where others have said making a bootable flash drive makes it so that anything i do while running windows on the flash drive will stay on the drive and not affect the computer. so if i download something it downloads to the flash drive and not the computer etc etc. if im wrong please say so. however my question before i buy a $70 windows 7 installation disk to make the flash drive bootable is, if i decide in 6 months that my 32 gb bootable flash drive just isnt enough space, how simple it is to move all of the data from it to another larger flash drive? is it as simple as formatting the other flash drive and then copy and paste? or would i have to buy another windows 7 installation and repeat the process on the new flash drive? thanks guys!
 
A bootable flash drive means you boot off of the flash drive itself. This is usually done with a Linux distro. The only Windows version that is bootable are Enterprise versions of Win8/8.1 & Win10. Windows 7 is not suited for a Live bootable environment.

If you want to boot off of a flash drive into another OS and not affect the OS on your Surface Pro, then you'll need to look into Linux, such as Ubuntu or Mint.
 
A bootable flash drive means you boot off of the flash drive itself. This is usually done with a Linux distro. The only Windows version that is bootable are Enterprise versions of Win8/8.1 & Win10. Windows 7 is not suited for a Live bootable environment.

If you want to boot off of a flash drive into another OS and not affect the OS on your Surface Pro, then you'll need to look into Linux, such as Ubuntu or Mint.


thank you for bringing that to my attention. it seems linux mint would be a better choice as it does not require as many recouses to run as windows 8 or 10 would. however where exactly can i buy linux mint and how do i make it bootable? i only know how to do this with a windows disk but whenever i look for linux i come to free downloads of the software. i stumbled across a program called rufus that says it will make my flash drive bootable with linux, here is a link it its tutorial with a link for the download, Boot DOS from USB | USB Pen Drive Linux

would this make the flash drive bootable and download linux aswell? thanks for the help!
 
Yes Rufus is fine.

Linux is a free OS - you don't pay for it. Mint is available from their website:
Download - Linux Mint

Download the ISO, load it into Rufus, and you can boot off of it into a Live Environment. However anything you do will not persist once rebooted (because it's running from RAM). So if you want to save any documents, pics, etc. while using the Live USB, you'll need to either save it onto the Surface Pro's storage (which is available to be saved to) or create a persistent Live USB (there's guides online on how to do this).
 
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