Has Anyone Been Able to Boot from UFD?

I have an Aspire 5672. The BIOS Boot Order screen shows four possible USB boot devices. I'm trying to get this laptop to recognize my Corsair USB 2.0 1GB Flash Voyager as either a USB Key drive or a USB HDD. The drive is formatted FAT with a Bart's PE on it. The drive has been made bootable by FlashBoot. Now, is the reason that the BIOS doesn't read this drive, the possibility that Acer has an agreement with MS not to allow boot drives with Pre-installed environments that have Windows on them? Or has anyone been able to make any Acer see a USB Flash drive?

 

My 8204 will boot off of the usb key,

actually it was really easy because I ignored all the rubbish and just used Subst to fool a program into thinking the drive was the A drive, and the did a SYS on it, nice and simple.

Anyway, you can definately boot off of flash drives, now I've not tried making it a Windows Disk (yet).

 

Neat trick Arla, old DOS knowledge coming in handy sometimes isn't it?

Talon_Sr
If it is Acer the prevents you booting from the USB with Bart PE, it must be something in the BIOS because the rest is all normal windows anda few utilities. I don't think they have something like that implemented.
However, (don't pin me on a reference) I think MS Windows normally only accepts booting normal Windows installations from a non-removable drive (except for Windows own PE that is). So maybe something went wrong with the Bart PE.
You could try to put the same image on a CD-RW and see if it works from there.

Cheers

Drio

 

I guess as another option, and I'm not sure what Bart PE is, try just making a Dos Bootable USB key and boot off that, that will at least prove whether you can boot off the USB key, as Drio stated, Windows may have other problems, but if you can prove you can boot off the USB key with DOS that would be a start.

Oh, and yes, DOS knowledge comes in Handy sometimes, I confess I've only been using it lots since about Dos 3.3, but still did use it quite a lot back then (wiped my dads hard drive more times than he cares to remember LOL)

 

Yeah, I tried that too. I just made a plain boot disk with the flash drive. The BIOS still does not see the flash drive. What is more frustrating is that it will work in my son's Aspire 1642 but not in my 5672. Everytime I try to enable a particular boot device in the Boot order screen, I get a beep. I should be able to enable/disable any of the 8 possible boot devices by pressing [Shift + 1]. All beeps on any attempt. Same thing with trying to designate the drive as removeable <r> or fixed <f>. I can change the order or include/exclude the devices but none of the USB devices show any lables or names of drives. This is infuriating.

 

Ahh Beep ...

Not sure for your model, but my model TM8106 has different options depending on going in BIOS with user password or supervisor password.
It my be that with userpassword you are not allowed to change what you want to change.
Stange enough my BIOS doesn't 'see' the USB drive unless it has been plugged in a few times (same with floppy and second HD. after that they just show up in the boot order and I can choose any one of them

Maybe it helps

Cheers

Drio

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Still doesn't work. I actually wiped the HDD clean and reinstalled from Recovery disk to see if that would help. But no. Tried inserting the flash drives about 5 times in all of the USB ports, but still isn't read. It's like the entire Boot order screen is disabled. I can't even designate the Primary HDD as fixed. Any option I try to change except for boot order of what is already there and exclusion, I get system beep.

 

The last one:

DarthAcer mentioned that for some Acer BIOSs pressing Ctrl-F1 in the Main BIOS screen should enable to change settings that you otherwise would not be allowed to change.
Doesn't make any difference on my TM8106, but I guess trying won't hurt

The BIOS may also have a HD password, what it you leave all three passes blank.

Cheers

Drio

 

Nope, didn't work but thanks anyway