Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

[Jessica]

[Conners]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

Hi see this post and scroll down to where it says making a bootable flash...

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/bios-flashing-how-qflash-guide-27576/

[Jessica]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

Thanks, but I've done that. That's where I got the info from in the first place. My problem seems to be a setting in the BIOS that allows me to boot from the flash drive.

No matter what I try, it don't work!

Cheers.

[Conners]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

I don't know your boards bios but under Advanced Settings enable Legacy USB Support Detect. Then where ever your boot menu is make USB Zip the first boot device that should do it if you set your usb memory stick up right. Bur I have been known to be wrong.

[creamsoda]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

Plug in your USB drive, go to -> Advanced BIOS Features -> Hard Disk Boot Priority.

You should see a list of your harddrives, as well as your USB drive. Highlight the USB drive and move it up to the top by pressing the "+" key on the number pad.

[Jessica]

[chmayer]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

I'm glad it worked for someone. I have a Gigabyte MA74 gm-s2h motherboard. I have two USB flash drives. Both boot fine on other boards. I have set first boot device to all usb options. No help. Went into HD boot priority and it sees the USB-HDD as first and Sata 160 drive as second. System hangs at bootup. Sees the flash drive fine but won't boot either one. One is a DOS Ghost bootable, the other is a WDC Data Lifeguard Tools bootable. Used to like Gigabyte but now I'm having second thoughts. HELP!!!

[Chike]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

USB flash appear as HD in BIOS, so select Hard Disk and the USB HD as the boot disk.
You can also try to press F12 at boot time, then select Hard Drive+ and then the USB HD.

[warren300]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

remember to format the stick in fat32 for the bios to see it aswell

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

++ 2 ^^

Make sure the drive is formatted to FAT32 not NTFS. Then be sure of course it is bootable, if that is your intention. In the BIOS be sure you have USB 1.2/2.0 enabled, and Legacy USB Storage.

Then plug the USB stick in, and reboot. At startup hit F12 to get to the boot menu, on the boot menu screen choose HDD+, then on the next screen choose your USB Stick by name. It may look like a generic name, or the name of the memory chip in the USB, you will know which it is though because you will recognize your hard drives so you will know which to pick.

[chmayer]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

The usb memory stick is an old 32 meg with a diskette image of Data Lifeguard tools on it used for setting up WDC disks. It was created with the HP bootable memory stick program. A same second memory stick has a diskette image of XP bootable diskette and Ghost loaded. Both work (boot) fine on other boards.
I checked bios and have the following: onchip usb controller=enabled; usb ehci=enabled; usb keyboard=enabled; usb mouse=enabled; and legacy usb storage detect=enabled.
I have 'first boot device' set to HDD and USB is above (before the 80gig WDC drive) in priority. If I strike F12 and select HDD+ I see the Sandisk cruizer before the HDD. Select it and enter and it hangs at "Verifying DMI pool data" message. Same happens on normal boot. Remove the usb memory stick and it boots XP fine from the HDD. ?????

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

Well boot order method is not going to work, the way you select it after HDD+ on the F12 screen should.

In windows check the USB stick properties, see if it is FAT32 type. Some USB Sticks just simply do not work with Qflash or booting in Gigabyte boards. I have two 2GB Sticks directly from Gigabyte themselves, one works for both the other will not work for either, so it all depends on if they are compatible or not as well.

Are you using the very latest BIOS for your board? If not this could also be part of the problem

[chmayer]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

[The memory sticks were created from bootable diskettes. Viewing them in Windows XP shows them as FAT not FAT32 and they are ~1.44meg size of which about 1 meg is used on the Ghost bootable memory stick I am looking at now. Could it be that Gigabyte does not support FAT (fat16) formatted bootable memory sticks?? I can see the files on the stick fine from WinXP. I just can't boot from the FAT stick.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Can't boot from USB flash drive. Need help.

Could be that or incompatible for the booting process.

Format it to FAT32 and see if it works then.