GA-785GMT-USB3: USB Boot Problems

[ShadesOfGrey]

Any attempt to boot from a USB Flash drive results in a "Boot error" message appearing after the "Loading Operating System" message.

In the BIOS I have "Legacy USB Support" enabled and "Legacy USB Storage" enabled.  I've tried enabling and disabling the floppy drive as well.  I've tried plugging the Flash drive into all the available USB (2.0) ports with no luck.  I've used two different Flash drives, one is 2GB the other 64MB.  Both boot just fine when plugged into my laptop, so it's most definitely a problem with the GA-785GMT-USB3.

I'm using the latest official BIOS version F3.  I have seen mention of a beta BIOS version F3A.  However, I haven't been able to find it anywhere I would be comfortable downloading it.  I'm also not sure if F3A actually supersedes the official F3 as I'm unable to read the pages on which F3A is mentioned.

BTW, I can access files on either Flash drive from Q-Flash.  Q-Flash is how I updated the BIOS from the stock F1.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might resolve this problem?  I'd like to have my diagnostic/recovery tools on a medium a little more durable and portable than CD/DVD.

[Dark Mantis]

But have you formatted your USB drive to FAT32?
I take it that you have tried TweakTown already?

[ShadesOfGrey]

But have you formatted your USB drive to FAT32?
I take it that you have tried TweakTown already?

No I haven't tried TweakTown.  Not really familiar with the site to be perfectly honest.  I did poke around a bit just now however, but haven't found any references to the GA-785GMT-USB3.  In fact the "Latest BIOS" thread on the GIGABYTE forum appears to be exclusively for Intel based GIGABYTE motherboards as far as I've seen.  I'll keep poking around though.  I also haven't found any references to the GA-785GMT-USB3 in the GIGABYTE forum as of yet.

Sorry, I thought the implication of accessing files from  Q-Flash indicated the drives were formatted as FAT.  Specifically FAT16 (formatted under Linux) for the 64MB drive and FAT32 (formatted under Windows XP) for the 2GB drive.  

[Dark Mantis]

No I haven't tried TweakTown.  Not really familiar with the site to be perfectly honest.  I did poke around a bit just now however, but haven't found any references to the GA-785GMT-USB3.  In fact the "Latest BIOS" thread on the GIGABYTE forum appears to be exclusively for Intel based GIGABYTE motherboards as far as I've seen.  I'll keep poking around though.  I also haven't found any references to the GA-785GMT-USB3 in the GIGABYTE forum as of yet.

Sorry, I thought the implication of accessing files from  Q-Flash indicated the drives were formatted as FAT.  Specifically FAT16 (formatted under Linux) for the 64MB drive and FAT32 (formatted under Windows XP) for the 2GB drive.  

You should be able to find the latest drivers on the TweakTown Forum. I know they have a driver archive for older drivers too which can be handy aty times.

Regarding the formatting of the USB drives you are of couse correct it's just that I didn't think anyone used FAT16 any more

[ShadesOfGrey]

You should be able to find the latest drivers on the TweakTown Forum. I know they have a driver archive for older drivers too which can be handy aty times.

Regarding the formatting of the USB drives you are of couse correct it's just that I didn't think anyone used FAT16 any more

Well, FAT32 really doesn't offer any really significant advantages for a drive only 64MB in size. 

Do you mean BIOS instead of driver?  Because I don't think any driver can possibly rectify not being able to boot from an USB Flash drive.  That is unless you implying there is a driver I can install under the BIOS.   

[Dark Mantis]

Yes my bad, I did mean BIOS. Just too many questions to answer Sorry.

[1Day]

Just out of interest what did you set in your boot order option?

[Dark Mantis]

Your USB drive must be inserted into the port before booting and the boot from USB option needs to be selected in the BIOS first. You will need the drive inserted for this option to appear.

[absic]

Hi there,

what are you attempting to BOOT from the USB Drive?

Are you trying to install an OS from the USB Drive if yes which OS is it?

Do you have any hard drives installed on the motherboard and if yes, is the controller set to IDE/AHCI or RAID? Also what are the make and model of the HDD's?

I have successfully installed Windows 7 and Linux from a USB stick onto a couple of these boards using the F3 BIOS and the only time I have encountered the "Boot error" message appearing after the "Loading Operating System" message has been due to the HDD I was trying to install onto, not being recognised by the Windows 7 OS. I had to initialise the disk on another PC before I could go any further.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Just out of interest what did you set in your boot order option?

Presently:

• [Hard Disk]
• [CD-ROM]
• [Disabled]

However, I have attempted re-ordering them in several different combinations, incl. all possible USB devices.  I also tried fiddling with the "Hard Disk Boot Priority" option.  Same deal, "Boot Error" each and every time.  Pressing the "Boot Menu" hotkey ("F12" in my case) and selecting any of the USB options also fails.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Your USB drive must be inserted into the port before booting and the boot from USB option needs to be selected in the BIOS first. You will need the drive inserted for this option to appear.

Just to clarify, are you saying that a "boot from USB" option will appear if and only if a USB device is plugged in prior to boot or prior to power on?  I've tried doing both and never have I seen this option appear in the BIOS.  Which I did in fact expect based on previous experience.   However, with the variations in BIOS, I couldn't be sure this option was supposed to be present in my case (with the GA-785GMT-USB3).

I suppose I may have been looking on the wrong menu.  Would that be in the "Advanced BIOS Features" or the "Integrated Peripherals" menu?  Or perhaps in some other menu entirely?

[Dark Mantis]

Would that be in the "Advanced BIOS Features" or the "Integrated Peripherals" menu?  Or perhaps in some other menu entirely?

From memory the Advanced BIOS Features.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Hi there,

what are you attempting to BOOT from the USB Drive?

Are you trying to install an OS from the USB Drive if yes which OS is it?

Do you have any hard drives installed on the motherboard and if yes, is the controller set to IDE/AHCI or RAID? Also what are the make and model of the HDD's?

I have successfully installed Windows 7 and Linux from a USB stick onto a couple of these boards using the F3 BIOS and the only time I have encountered the "Boot error" message appearing after the "Loading Operating System" message has been due to the HDD I was trying to install onto, not being recognised by the Windows 7 OS. I had to initialise the disk on another PC before I could go any further.

At first, I wanted to boot http://partedmagic.com/ in order to perform 'off-line' file system checks...  To make a long story short, Ubuntu 10.04 and subsequently Linux Mint 9 (which I installed via a Live DVD) seem to have trouble completing mandatory file system checks in certain cases.  So I needed some way to boot from a Live distro of some sort to check the file systems.  I decided on Parted Magic because I was familiar with it from a completely different situation and thought using a Flash drive would be more convenient than a CD/DVD.  In order to do this I downloaded UNetbootin.  I've also tried creating a bootable Flash drive following instructions provided by http://www.sysresccd.org/ and http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/.  As well as using UNetbootin to boot FreeDOS.  All of these worked fine on my laptop (an MSI GT735), but fail on the GA-785GMT-USB3.

I'm presently booting from an 80GB Western Digital WD800JD-32HK.  I also have two 500GB Seagate ST3500418AS in a RAID 1 Array.  In my case I decided to set the controller to RAID.  If it's important, I tried toggling the "OnChip SATA Port4/5 Type" from "IDE" to "As SATA Type" (and back again) just to see if that might have any effect.  It didn't.

The system boots fine, I'm using right now. :-) I had no trouble installing Linux Mint 9 from DVD...  Well except I had to disable the "Onboard USB 3.0 controller" for a time (which I have toggled on and off during my troubleshooting).  IIRC, udev and the the xHCI driver weren't getting along after installation.  Once I updated one or the other, the kernel panic(s) I was experiencing went away.  Anyway, there don't appear to be any incompatibilities between the hard drives and the BIOS.

[ShadesOfGrey]

From memory the Advanced BIOS Features.

I'll check that ASAP...

I just checked my manual and this option isn't mentioned anywhere...  But then again, I'm not using the stock BIOS and motherboard manuals are notoriously filled with errata.

EDIT:

No such option appears in the "Advanced BIOS Features" menu...  At least not for me.  Can anyone confirm that this option is present for the GA-785GMT-USB3 motherboard with version F3 BIOS?  If so, than perhaps I need to re-flash my BIOS or there's something wrong with my MoBo.

[1Day]

Just out of interest what did you set in your boot order option?

Presently:

• [Hard Disk]
• [CD-ROM]
• [Disabled]

However, I have attempted re-ordering them in several different combinations, incl. all possible USB devices.  I also tried fiddling with the "Hard Disk Boot Priority" option.  Same deal, "Boot Error" each and every time.  Pressing the "Boot Menu" hotkey ("F12" in my case) and selecting any of the USB options also fails.

Just to confirm, you had your USB drive connected (what format was the USB drive file structure?) and you did select the USB drive  in your hard drive boot selection options?  I found that I needed to specify the USB hard drive (pen drive in your case) in that bios option before I could boot via the USB pen drive.

Will check back later to see how it went.