Booting from USB on Award Bios

[j7n]

What do I need to do to boot from a USB drive on Award BIOS v6.00PG? The computer is from around 2007. I've little experience with booting from USB.

In boot device options I have USB-ZIP, USB-FDD, USB-HDD. Tried Legacy USB Storage Detect: Enabled; tried disabling AHCI and Native mode. The USB stick does not appear in the list of Hard Disk Boot Priority, as I've seen on other instructions. Only SCSI HDD are there and an item called Bootable Add-in Cards (tried that).

I made the Kingston Data Traveller 111 with Universal USB Installer and SARDU. It contains one FAT32 partition, syslinux and GRLDR. Perhaps this is too complex, but ultimately I need this to be useful instead of something like a DOS diskette. The system didn't show any signs of reading from the USB.

PS. The Intel AHCI BIOS has an annoying massive delay while it waits for hard disks to become ready.

[D.Draker]

Yep , you're right, annoying and terribly outdated .

First - try a smaller USB stick (not 128GB). Smth like 2-4GB.

Second - Select USB-HDD as the first boot device.

Also may try to force your booting :

Right after the BIOS splash - press F12 several times (boot menu) and choose the device you want to boot from.

EDIT. What mobo are we talking about ? Something like this Siemens from 2007 ?

https://support.ts.fujitsu.com/Search/SWP1081179.asp

Edited November 19, 2022 by D.Draker

[j7n]

The motherboard is GA-965G-DS3. In the F12 boot menu it shows the same categories that can be selected in setup: Floppy, Hard Disk, USB-HDD, CDROM. It does not list specific disks. Choosing USB-HDD from the boot menu still doesn't work.

The USB stick is 16GB. I will have to find another that is smaller later.

The BIOS looks like this, except missing are the USB-HDD0:... entries in that menu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29qV5xXh09A

Normally I don't mind waiting extra 20s on boot, but when troubleshooting I need to go through the Intel AHCI screen again and again. Disks also lose staggered spinup, because they get powered on immeidately on the Energy Star screen.

[D.Draker]

You don't want that thing to work in AHCI mode, trust me. Also, it's not 2007 , it's more like 2005-06 smth. I wrote before in your other topic I had a similar board Siemens D2317 Q965 (same chipset as yours, but more business oriented). And its  Intel BIOS is extremely user unfriendly .  I put a curse on Intel !

I ended up creating a bootable DVD with Vista. I assume your stick is recognised in the system after you boot ? Well then try the modified Rufus tool for Vista by @UCyborg on a smaller 

USB stick. This is your last hope.

 

[D.Draker]

Oh gee, that moronic *please wait* 30 minutes in the BIOS crap from the video, thanks for the "nostalgic" memories. Yes, it's the same dreaded BIOS my board had, except some improvements made by the Germans. The poor German developers from Siemens tried really hard, I guess.

PS. That "energy saving" crap could be turned OFF in the German replica, so try it on yours. It was called something like "previous power state" OFF, so it won't turn off your disks each time.

Overall , some extremely poor minded coders made that BIOS.

[D.Draker]

6 hours ago, j7n said:

Award BIOS v6.00PG

Let me be the Indian support for a minute and ask did you update the BIOS ?

[D.Draker]

Well, like I said - it's the mobo from 2006 and they claim to have some fixes done later.

I'm pretty sure you know: updating BIOS involves some certain risk.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-965G-DS3-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

[j7n]

I found a Kingston Data Traveller 2.0 2GB. It works and shows up in the list of connected hard disks. I doubt that the size is the key issue here because I previously used a hard disk in an enclosure to boot Windows and special programs with this computer at work. I suspect the difference might be that the new USB stick is USB 3.0 (which it doesn't need to be) and the old is not.

I did update the BIOS before I changed the CPU. Booting previously worked with stock BIOS. Those numbers 6.00PG don't change with updating. Pentium 4 computers always have 6.00 and Pentium II have 4.50 or 4.51.

[D.Draker]

6 hours ago, j7n said:

I found a Kingston Data Traveller 2.0 2GB. It works and shows up in the list of connected hard disks.

Watcha trynna say ? It finally worked fir you with the lesser size, like I suggested ?

 

[j7n]

Yes, I can boot off the older Data Traveller 2GB.

[D.Draker]

22 hours ago, j7n said:

Yes, I can boot off the older Data Traveller 2GB.

Finally ! Size is all that matters. Glad I helped.