Additional BIOS settings – USB booting tips and tricks

BIOS setup tips for USB Boot:

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 booting a USB Linux system. If the flash memory stick fails to boot, go back into the system BIOS and try changing some of the following settings (Be sure to take note on any changes you have made). In addition, we have included some other tips to help achieve a successful boot.

• Switch on or off USB keyboard support
• Turn off Fast Boot
• Disable USB 2.0 support (last resort, this will default to USB 1.1)

Other tips to help you Boot from USB:

These are some other suggestions to help ensure a successful USB Linux Boot:

• Unplug USB hubs and extensions (these may draw from the current needed to wake your USB device)
• Try using a different USB port. (some frontal ports may not be fully supportive)
• Unplug additional USB devices. (I've seen something as simple as an IPod halt a system boot)
• Sometimes a USB 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 cheatcode before boot.