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ThinkPad Yoga 11e booting from SD card

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 4:11 am
by abbiecd
In case anyone is interested to know, and has tried to leverage a ThinkPad's SD card for an alternate operating system, the ThinkPad Yoga 11e (Windows/Celeron N2940), supports booting from the SD card. The SD slot also fully accepts the entire SD so you don't have any signs, except for a slight lip, sticking out.

When I want to take a test-drive of different operating systems for more than a live distribution, I like to use removable media instead of mucking with the internal Windows installation. But I'm not fond of using USB external media since I tend to be a bit clumsy.

I did a similar build for a ThinkPad X230t, but because it's PCI based, the BIOS won't boot from it, requiring a boot loader which can load the Linux kernel and then pivot to the SD card. On an ASUS X200LA, which I selected because it clearly had a USB media reader, unlike my beloved X41t and X230t, I incorrectly assumed the SD was a typical USB mass storage device. Instead, I found it requires a special driver and is not recognized as a boot device.

I have to wonder (and ask) if anyone has started already a list or would find useful a list showing which laptops and tablets support booting from embedded media readers?

Re: ThinkPad Yoga 11e booting from SD card

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2022 11:55 am
by caffemusse
Hi great to hear I will try also this option.
How do the r/w speeds perform ie vs usb 3?
Which fast distro have you found that works best?
PS do you know of any options to add a WAN card to the 11e 6th gen (which I have)?