Running Hiren’s Boot USB

To use Hiren’s Boot USB, your desktop or laptop must boot from USB and not from your hard drive.

There are a number of ways to do this:

BOOT MENU (TRY THIS FIRST)

Different manufacturer’s used different keys to access a boot menu that will allow you to easily boot from USB:

• Dell - Press and hold the F12 key when your screen displays startup information
• HP - Press and hold the F9 or the ESC key when your screen displays startup information
• Acer - Press and hold the F12 key when your screen displays startup information
• Lenovo - Press and hold the F12 or (Fn + F12) key when your screen displays startup information
• ASUS - Press and hold the ESC key or the F8 key when your screen displays startup information

Note: On some computers, rapidly tapping the boot menu key until you see the startup screen works better than just holding the key down.

When the boot menu appears, you will see several lines representing boot devices on your PC. Different manufacturers present this information in unique ways. On most computers, look for a line that contains the phrases UEFI and/or USB. Move the cursor to that line and press the ENTER key to boot Hiren.
On older machines you may not see a line that contains UEFI. In that case, look for a line that says USB or USB device. Move the cursor to that line and press the ENTER to try to boot Hiren.
If you see multiple lines that contain USB and or UEFI, try selecting each one until you find the right line that will boot into the Hiren disk.
If you don’t see UEFI or USB at all, try booting from the bottom most boot option.

FROM THE BIOS SCREEN

If you can’t used the boot menu, you may have to adjust your BIOS settings to boot into the Hiren disk.

Different manufacturers use different keys to access the BIOS:

• Dell - Press and hold the F2 key when your screen displays startup information. Older Dell's may use Fn+ESC or or Fn+F1
• HP - Press and hold the F1, F10, F11, or F12 key when your screen displays startup information. Older HP's might use F2 or ESC.
• Lenovo - Press and hold the F1 or F2 key when your screen displays startup information
• ASUS - Press and hold the F2, DEL, ESC, or F10 key when your screen displays startup information
• Acer - Press and hold DEL or F2 key when your screen displays startup information

Once you’ve entered the BIOS, browse through its configuration options until you find a page called “Boot” or similar. There, you should see the boot order used by your computer. In this list, you must choose the USB flash drive to be the first device used for booting. Remember that the USB option can be named differently on your PC: check for Removable Devices, USB-HDD, or similar names. Moving the USB flash drive to the top of the boot list is usually done using the keyboard keys +, -, F5, or F6. Your BIOS should display some helpful information about this topic.

After you’ve selected the USB flash drive as the first boot option, save your settings (usually done by pressing F10 on your keyboard) and Exit the BIOS/UEFI environment. Your computer will restart and then automatically boot from the USB flash drive.

Once the Hiren USB boots, select the “Utilities” folder to see a list of all of the applications included. For antivirus scans and password resets, select the “Security” folder in the utilities window. For antivirus and malware checks, select the “Antivirus” folder.

For a password reset of a Windows user account, try this:
From the “Security” folder, select the “Passwords” folder and start “NP Password Edit”. Open your SAM file (It is usually located in C:\Windows\System32\config\SAM).
Click the username that you want to reset and the click ‘Change password’. To set a password, type your password in both the ‘New password’ and ‘Verify’ fields and then click to ‘OK’. To remove the password, leave both ‘New password’ and ‘Verify’ fields blank and then click to ‘OK’. Then remove the Hiren USB and reboot into Windows to test the password change.

The Hiren boot drive includes many other useful applications. Please search the internet using the application’s name to find out more about them and how to use them.