Vostro will not boot from USB flash drive

Hi,
I have a Dell Vostro that will not boot from a boot-able USB flash drive,
I have checked the BIOs and USB is listed as the first boot-able device. I have tried hitting
the f12 and telling it to boot fron the USB but it just boots up XP. I have tried two different boot-able flash drive to no avail.

Any ideas?

 

what's on the flash drive ? on OS

When you selected F12 did it show the flash drive as present - usually see the flash drive name etc there?

tried all the USB ports ?

 

Which Vostro do you have? If your referring to the 3460 I have the same problem. To elaborate I have been creating boot-able usb drives using Unetbootin or Universal usb installer to install/run windows 7(install only), Ubuntu, Kubuntu, partedmagic, Hirensbootcd etc. And they work with all my other computers.

The Vostro v131 was able to boot from a usb drive or an external dvd-rom if I used the usb 2.0 port but failed if I used any of the usb 3.0 ports. But the Vostro 3460 doesn't have any usb 2.0 ports, and like the earlier V131 will not boot from a boot-able usb drive most of the time. I have tried Ubuntu, Windows 7, Windows 8, Kaspersky's Rescue CD, Bitdefender's Rescue CD all seem to fail with varying error messages.

According to what I have been able to find on the web the problem may have to do with loading the usb 3.0 drivers at bootup. Strangely I have been able to boot an Acronis True Image 2013 usb drive. I was also able to boot PartedMagic by using windows image writer to burn the iso directly to the drive.

 

even on my M4700, and Inspiron 15R SE had to use the USB 2 port to do the OS install does not work on the USB 3 ports

 

Sorry for the delay in responding, been gone for a week.

Dave,
I have AVG rescue and Bit-defender on USB 2 flash drives which both boot off my Dell with no problem.
F12 did not show the presence of the flash drive but USB is one of the choices.
I didn't try it in any other USB port, but I will try another, not sure why I didn't think of that one myself.

Speedy,
It's a Vostro 1000 and I used Unetbootin to make the drives bootable. Like I said, both boot fine on the dell so I know it is a Vostro issue.

This is not a crucial issue as the Vostro doesn't have any software problems. I just wanted to see how AVG and Bit-defender worked and found it a bit frustrating that they would not boot.. Thought maybe someone would have a work-around. Thanks for the help,

 

I used the Win7 USB Boot software to make a Win7 install on a USB key, it works great on 95% of the laptops I tried it with.

there are a few however like my XPS 15z where I have to either slipstream the SATA drivers or use the Dell OS install disk to make it work.

 

Dave-p,
I tried the flash drive on all of the USB ports, no luck.
I'm giving up on this one as it really isn't critical. This is the first computer problem I have ever given up on in 30 years. Giving up feels so wrong yet, I have run out of ideas.
Thanks for the help.

 

Hey!

Not sure if this is relevant anymore but I was browsing here for something unrelated and came across this thread.

I recently had the same issue and pulled my hair out trying to find out why it would not boot from USB. In my case I was trying to install Windows 7 from USB drive. I would get a read error message after selecting boot from USB at the boot menu.

What I did was format the USB drive to FAT32 instead of NTFS using the method here: Install Windows 7 From USB

May be a good lead regardless of what you are trying to boot. Where it says format fs=ntfs I instead used fomat fs=fat32 quick (for quick format)

 

I have a Vostro 3460. It has 4 USB 3.0 ports and no USB 2.0 ports

I have no problem to boot using Sandisk Cruzer USB 2.0 thumdrives. ... They are formatted using fat32. I have prepared them using both Sardu and Yumi. I can boot into Ubuntu, Slax, Windows Defender64, Acronis 2012, UBCD, partition wizard, clonezilla, Bitdefender, AVG, and Windows 7 repair. I can also install Windows 7 from USB.

what I have not been able to do is boot from a USB 3.0 drive. It appears that the Vostro BIOS (i have the latest version) does not support USB 3.0 boot.... but I have been unable to confirm this ...

I'd appreciate to hear if anyone is successful to get a Dell Vostro or similar to boot using a USB 3.0 thumbdrive

 

Just an idea or a maybe.

Dell Vostro v131
Bios : American Megatrends vA03
- Menu: Advanced [Miscellaneous Devices] - Boot Disable = Enabled (changes to Disabled)

Listed the bios (just in case)
After changing [Boot Disabled] to Disabled - no probs with booting from usb devices.

It helped me ...