Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you didn’t have a flash drive handy? Well, the other day I was trying to re-install Windows on my laptop, and sure enough, my USB flash drive conveniently went missing. Luckily, I was able to use my Nexus 5 to mount the ISO and boot my laptop from it. So here’s how you can boot computer from Android phone:
What You’ll Need:
- A rooted Android Device
- Laptop or Computer that can be booted from USB
- Drive Droid
Step 1: Select Image File
In order to mount an image or iso file from your phone, you’re going to need to use a special app called Drive droid. Download it from the Play Store. After you launch Drive Droid, it will scan for any available images on your device (located in downloads/images). If you don’t have an image, you can download one of many Linux distributions available. Go to the plus icon and select the option to download an ISO.
Mounting Windows:
If you don’t plan to use a Linux distribution and want to mount a Windows image instead, you first need to create a blank disk image. Allocate the appropriate size that you need and hit done to create the image.
Now go to the plus icon and choose the option to add image from file. Navigate to /downloads/images and select your newly created image file.
Then select the image and mount it as a writable USB. Connect your phone to your computer. You should see a blank drive.
Finally, download a free program called Rufus. Inside of Rufus select your Windows iso file and make sure the write location is set to the blank drive. Then hit write.
Once that’s done, follow the rest of this tutorial.
Step 2: Mounting the Image/iso
Now tap on the image or iso file, and select to mount it as a writable USB. (If this doesn’t work, change it to CD-Rom). If you’re using an Image file (using the Windows Method above, then you first must manually add the image before you can mount it).
Step 3: Booting
Connect your phone to your computer or laptop and make sure the boot order is set to boot from the USB. If all goes well, your computer should boot from the operating systen mounted on via Drive Droid.