Is it possible to boot with a completely blank hard drive, from a USB stick?

I have a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, and am ordering an upgrade for the hard drive. If I put a linux OS on a USB, and physically swap out the two hard drives, will I be able to turn on my computer and have it boot from the USB drive?
I know only a little about BIOS/UEFI. Is this stored somewhere else than the hard drive? Will I have to adjust the boot order prior to doing the physical swap?

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