[SOLVED] Bios setting for live usb

[ternor]

My apologies if this has been specified anywhere; I only managed to find general references.  I want to know whether my bios contains an appropriate setting to boot a live usb.

I have this option (among others): USB ZIP.  Will that do?  The other USB options relate to floppy and cdrom (USB FDD and USB CDROM).

I also have the options LS 120, Zip 100, Legacy LAN, Boot from other device, "Swap Floppy Drive" and "Back up floppy seek."

[johnmart]

If you give info about your motherboard it might help.
But it wouldn't help me cuz I don't know about m/b. 
But I'd suggest trying your usb options to see what works. 
Also, most bios gives you an option at boot time to choose boot options by pressing f12 or some other key. If your usb is plugged in at boot, your usb drive should be displayed as a boot option if your bios supports that option. Look at the bottom line of your screen when the bios message is displayed. In the meantime maybe a more knowledgeable m/b mind will drop in. 

[djohnston]

That sounds like an older BIOS. The Zip100 and LS120 are, most likely, referring to devices interfaced to the floppy drive controller on the motherboard. Have you tried any of the options with a bootable USB drive? I would try USB ZIP, (believe it or not) USB FDD and Boot from other device.

[Just17]

There are often two places to set the boot options in BIOS.

In one of them you set the priority of the options ... make sure that all options are allowed and that the internal HDD is the last one while testing.

Do you have an option to display boot options during first switch on?

It may be that your BIOS is set not to display them .....  I usually make sure that no graphic is displayed during POST (BIOS boot) and that the display  of options is allowed.

With those options set, insert a bootable USB drive and then power on the PC.

During the time before you get to the Grub page of your normal OS, pressing a 'special' key should bring up the boot options list.
This key is often the F12 key .......  but could be one of many .....  I have seen Del, Esc, F1, F2, F8 & F10 also used.

If your PC can be booted by USB drive it should show on the list ....  usually as the last entry.

If you know your motherboard and BIOS version it is also possible to get the info from a manual available on line.

[ternor]

Many thanks for the information.

[ternor]

Hello.  I finally got to test this last week.  I set usbzip as the second boot option ahead of the hard drive.  I also pressed the button to get boot options and tried all usb options.  The system did not boot from the usb stick.

I'd like to be certain that the failure to boot is attributable to the bios and not to the stick itself.  This is the description in PCC of the sole partition shown on the usb:

Device: sdb1
Volume label: usb1
UUID: 62e7f5d3-c5bd-4bda-a42b-94848ce6f7f5
Type: Journalised FS: ext3 (0x83)
Start: sector 62
Size: 3.7GB (99%), 7810946 sectors
Cylinder 0 to 1015
Mounted
Partition booted by default
    (for MS-DOS boot, not for lilo)

I am wondering whether 'Start: sector 62' means that there are blank sectors and that I should re-format the usb.

[Old-Polack]

Hello.  I finally got to test this last week.  I set usbzip as the second boot option ahead of the hard drive.  I also pressed the button to get boot options and tried all usb options.  The system did not boot from the usb stick.

I'd like to be certain that the failure to boot is attributable to the bios and not to the stick itself.  This is the description in PCC of the sole partition shown on the usb:

Device: sdb1
Volume label: usb1
UUID: 62e7f5d3-c5bd-4bda-a42b-94848ce6f7f5
Type: Journalised FS: ext3 (0x83)
Start: sector 62
Size: 3.7GB (99%), 7810946 sectors
Cylinder 0 to 1015
Mounted
Partition booted by default
    (for MS-DOS boot, not for lilo)

I am wondering whether 'Start: sector 62' means that there are blank sectors and that I should re-format the usb.

Is there not an option for USB HDD? That's what works on my machines, for either USB sticks or real hard drives in external USB cases.

As djohnston pointed out, the USB ZIP option is for the old iomega ZIP 100, Zip 250, and ZIP 750 drives. On the other hand this does not make it an old BIOS, as suggested. I have two AM3+ socket MBs, one manufactured last November, and the other this past March, both of which have Award UEFI/BIOS with those same options.

[ternor]

Thanks.  No, there is no option for USB HDD.  It seems that I'll have to use some method to work around the shortcomings of the Bios.  Perhaps this will work.

[djohnston]

Thanks.  No, there is no option for USB HDD.  It seems that I'll have to use some method to work around the shortcomings of the Bios.  Perhaps this will work.

Yes, it will work. I was going to suggest Plop on a floppy. I can already tell you it works to boot a USB thumb drive on a machine with no BIOS option to boot from USB. I have used a Plop floppy Just19 posted on two computers to boot a USB stick. And, in each case, the USB stick was plugged into a PCI card that supplies extra USB ports, separate from those on the motherboard.

February 2nd to July 19th was a pretty long wait.  

[ternor]

Thanks.  Yes, I am a champion at procrastinating.

[Just17]

There is another possibility that seems not to have been looked at ......

Discard the USB Zip and USB Floppy etc from the boot list in BIOS.

Boot from HDD, CD, Internal Floppy etc depending on the hardware in the machine.


When booting, press the 'magic key' to bring up the boot list.

A lot of BIOS's will enumerate the USB stick (if it has been plugged in for the BIOS to find), or USB HDD, in the HDD listing in this list.
I have several PCs with BIOS that do this.
There is no separate entry for USB disks.

I boot the USB stick from the HDD selection list.

[ternor]

Thank you.  Saturday tomorrow so I'll have another look at the set-up.

[ternor]

Success.  Thank you to all who replied.

I inserted the usb stick before switching the machine on.  I went into Advanced Bios Settings again.  Instead of looking at the boot sequence settings as usual, I looked at a setting I had never noticed previously named "Hard disk priority."  That had 3 items including the usb stick which I moved to the top of the list.

I then pressed the key to get the machine's boot menu and selected hard drive as the device from which to boot.  That got me a grub menu from the usb.

For some reason there was only one item on the menu, not the list which I got from a disk burnt with the same image.  Perhaps I should have waited longer.  At any rate I was able to get LXDE.  No more coasters.