On 2026-01-30, David Wright <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu 29 Jan 2026 at 16:46:40 (-0000), Bigsy Bohr wrote: >> On 2026-01-28, D. R. Evans <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > OK... on the basis of the fact that you expected USB boot to work, I just >> > went >> > and spent some time messing with the boot options, and found a way to make >> > it >> > work. What I had not realised was that it was not enough to select >> > "USB-HDD" >> > from the BIOS list, but I also had to then go and look at the hard drive >> > boot >> > order, where a new entry had appeared (at a low priority). Once I saw that >> > and >> > changed its priority so that it was the preferred boot device, the machine >> > booted fine from the USB drive. >> > >> > All this, I'm sure, is very elementary stuff... but if one has never >> > encountered it before, as I have not, none of it was obvious. >> >> In fact, that's not my experience with an old and buggy BIOS. There's a >> preferred boot order; it looks first for a hard disk, then for an optical >> device, failing that a USB dongle, etc. That order can be altered, which >> is logical. > > Your experience relates to BIOSes similar to those in standard Intel > desktop mobos (like Rhinestone/Endeavour/Atlanta/Tucson/Seattle) > that I've used in the past, or all the Dells I've used since: > a neat list of potential targets, in order, and even telling you > nowadays which are present and which not. > > But the OP's priority-promotion behaviour is quite normal for, say, > a PhoenixBIOS. It's just a shame that the OP hadn't discovered that > when the machine was first obtained (and could be expected to work > to spec or have a manual, or whatever). > > With the PhoenixBIOS in particular, there are other undocumented > wrinkles too. Any indication that the machine /can/ boot from USB > depends on your having inserted a stick before you turn it on. > IOW you can navigate all around the BIOS menus with no whisper > of the term USB. > > Worse, the same is true if you boot /with/ a USB stick inserted. You > have to /know/ to navigate to Hard Drive and press Enter in order to > see the first mention of "USB". > > Worse still, you get false negatives: not every USB stick will work > from a stack of sticks, even when identical images are installed on > them all. And those that work may not work in every USB socket— > particularly on laptops, where they're scattered about the mobo > and might have different specs. > > Any lack of success (bad stick or absence) will reset the BIOS, > erasing any trace in the BIOS that USB booting had been possible. > > All of the above can be demonstrated by my Acer Travelmate 3201xci.
You're an excellent trouble-shooter. I have an Acer X1301 with a kind of ACPI bug in it (sometimes when my Samsung SyncMaster 172v goes into power-saving mode, it turns the screen off completely, and I have to unplug it for a minute or two and then plug it back in). It took me a while to grok that it wasn't the monitor itself that was failing. And sometimes when powering off, the mobo doesn't turn off (although the shutdown routine has been correctly performed, and there's no recuperation of the journal when booting again), and I have to press the power button for five seconds to turn the machine off. This Acer is still running, though. It's only the third computer I've ever owned; the second is at my feet, and the first was a Dell that suffered from the "bad caps" syndrome at the turn of the century. > Cheers, > David. > >
