BIOS USB Booting tips and tricks. BIOS settings for booting from USB devices. The system BIOS can be complicated to someone who is not yet familiar with all of the settings. Here are a few tips to help increase your chances of successfully USB booting from a Live Linux system, Windows Installer, or other System Utility installed on your bootable USB flash drive.
Note: If the flash memory stick fails to boot, go back into the system BIOS and try changing some of the following settings. During your testing, be sure to document any changes you have made. This way you can easily revert back to original settings if the changes did not result in a successful boot.
BIOS USB Boot Settings for tricky USB booting
Here are some BIOS USB boot settings and tips to help you achieve a successful boot from USB.
- Switch on or off USB keyboard support.
- Disable Secure Boot
- Turn off Fast Boot.
- Disable USB 3.2, 3.1, 3.0 or 2.0 support (last resort, as this will default to super slow USB 1.1).
Other Tips to help you Boot from USB
These are some other suggestions to help ensure a successful USB Boot:
- Unplug all connected USB hubs and extensions (these may draw from the current needed to wake your USB device).
- Try using a different USB port. (sometimes the frontal ports are not fully supportive of all USB features).
- Unplug additional USB devices. (I have seen something as simple as a connected iPhone halt a system boot).
- Sometimes a USB flash drive may go undetected at startup. If your drive has an LED, ensure that it either flashes or remains solid during system post. If the drive does not respond, remove the drive, then power the system completely down for 15 seconds, reinsert the drive and try again.
- Some laptops using a PCMCIA slot may have troubles booting. You may have to tell Linux to ignore PCMCIA during boot. You can do this in the syslinux.cfg file by simply adding "nopcmcia" to the default boot options or by using a Linux Cheat Codes before boot.
Also, be sure to check out the BIOS USB boot options section for additional tips and help getting your external storage device to boot.