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A live USB is a portable USB-attached external data storage device containing a full operating system that can be booted from. The term is reminiscent of USB flash drives but may encompass an external hard disk drive or solid-state drive, though they may be referred to as "live HDD" and "live SSD" respectively. They are the evolutionary next step after live CDs, but with the added benefit of writable storage, allowing customizations to the booted operating system. Live USBs can be used in embedded systems for system administration, data recovery, or test driving, and can persistently save settings and install software packages on the USB device. Many operating systems including Mac OS 9, macOS, Windows XP Embedded and a large portion of Linux and BSD distributions can run from a USB flash drive, and Windows 8 Enterprise has a feature titled Windows To Go for a similar purpose. To repair a computer with booting issues, technicians often use lightweight operating systems on bootable media and a command-line interface. The development of the first live CDs with graphical user interface made it feasible for non-technicians to repair malfunctioning computers. Most Live CDs are Linux-based, and in addition to repairing computers, these would occasionally be used in their own right as operating systems. Personal computers introduced USB booting in the early 2000s, with the Macintosh computers introducing the functionality in 1999 beginning with the Power Mac G4 with AGP graphics and the slot-loading iMac G3 models. Intel-based Macs carried this functionality over with booting macOS from USB. Specialized USB-based booting was proposed by IBM in 2004 with Reincarnating PCs with Portable SoulPads and Boot Linux from a FireWire device. Live USBs share many of the benefits and limitations of live CDs, and also incorporate their own. In contrast to live CDs, the data contained on the booting device can be changed and additional data stored on the same device.

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