How to Boot Acer Laptop from USB on Windows 11/10

Booting your Acer laptop from a USB drive can be essential for installing an operating system, running diagnostic tools, or recovering files. Whether you are using Windows 11 or Windows 10, the process can be straightforward if you know the right steps. In this article, we will discuss the Acer laptop boot key and provide a detailed guide on how to boot from USB effectively.

What Is the Acer Laptop Boot Key?

The Acer laptop boot key is a specific key you need to press during startup to access the boot menu. For most Acer laptops, the boot key is F12. However, if this key doesn’t work, you can also try Esc or F2 to access the BIOS settings. These keys allow you to select the USB drive as your boot device.

How to Boot Acer Laptop from USB

To boot your laptop from USB, you must first make the USB flash drive bootable, which means you need to create a Windows 8/10/11 bootable USB drive. To ensure that this process is completed successfully, follow the steps below:

1. Prepare Bootable USB for Acer Laptop

First, prepare a USB drive with a capacity greater than or equal to the original operating system drive on your Acer laptop. And format it as FAT32 or NTFS. then create the bootable USB drive with the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, an all-in-one disk management tool. It offers two features:

• Windows To Go Creator: make a portable system on a flash drive.
• Make Bootable Media: make a Win PE device.

Both methods allow you to format the USB flash drive directly, thus making a bootable drive easy. If you have important data, please back up the USB flash drive in advance.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

Step 2. Click "Tools" on the top toolbar, and select "Windows To Go Creator".

Step 3. Select "Create Window To Go for Personal Computer", and click "Next".

Step 4: Select "Create Windows ToGo with System Disc/ISO" and select the installation file. Then click "Next."

Step 5. In this window, the program will detect the USB drive. If not, click the Refresh button. The USB will be formatted, then click "Proceed."

When you use AOMEI Partition Assistant to make the USB drive available, you will get a portable system. You can carry it with you to start your computer, even a brand new one.

In addition, AOMEI Partition Assistant also provides "Make Bootable Media" You can create a Windows PE bootable pendrive to start your computer to fix boot problems caused by:  corrupted Master Boot Record, there are bad sectors on the primary hard disk.

2. Change the boot order of Acer laptop

After creating a Windows bootable USB flash drive, you can set the USB as the boot drive and boot your Acer notebook from it; otherwise, you will encounter boot errors. Follow the steps below to change the default boot order and prioritize the USB drive to boot first:

Step 1: Connect the USB drive and reboot the Acer laptop.

Step 2: Press F12 or Esc repeatedly to enter the BIOS setup.

Step 3: After entering the BIOS setup, you will see a list of available boot devices in the boot menu. Use the arrow keys to highlight your USB drive and press Enter.

You can then run Windows 10 from the USB flash drive to work in the same environment.

Conclusion

Booting your Acer laptop from a USB drive is a simple process that requires knowing the correct boot key and steps. By following this guide, you can easily access your USB drive for various tasks, such as OS installation or troubleshooting.

FAQs About How to Boot Acer Laptop from USB

1. How do I enable the F12 boot menu on Acer?

To enable the F12 boot menu on Acer, access the BIOS setup by pressing F2 during startup. In the BIOS menu, navigate to the Boot tab, and make sure the boot menu option is enabled.

2. How do I force my laptop to boot from USB?

To force your laptop to boot from USB, follow the steps to access the boot menu (usually by pressing F12) and select the USB drive as the boot device. You may need to adjust the boot order in the BIOS settings if it does not appear.

3. What is the boot key for Acer BIOS?

The boot key for Acer BIOS is typically F2 to enter BIOS settings and F12 to access the boot menu directly.