Aspire S3 won't boot from USB flash drive

EditedBaseline
EditedBaseline Member Posts: 2 New User
Hi

I brought an Aspire S3 today to replace my ageing Vaio but I can't get it to boot from my USB drive.

The S3 arrived with Win8 which works fine and sees any USB drive I connect to it. However when I try to opt from a bootable one it just goes straight to Windows.

The USB drive is definately bootable and works perfectly on the Vaio.

I've gone through all the options in the BIOS (Insyde H20) and tried every combination of boot order. When I try the Boot Order key (F12) during POST only the internal HDD shows up.

Is there a known issue with booting from external devices on this device or am I missing something?

(Don't think it helps/makes a difference but the USB drive is a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 4GB, made bootable by YUMI and has 5 bootable OSes on which I need to be able to access.)

Many thanks

Answers

  • sspak9
    sspak9 Member Posts: 19 New User

    Try legacy boot mode in BIOS.  In UEFI mode, the USB drive won't get recognized as a bootable drive.

  • EditedBaseline
    EditedBaseline Member Posts: 2 New User
    I tried that but just get 'No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key'.

    With this set, even if I go into the boot menu (F12) and choose the internal HDD with Windows on it gives the same message. It's like it refuses to boot from anything in Legacy Mode.
  • nathan_tran
    nathan_tran Member Posts: 1 New User

    For those who have the same problem stated above... It's the BIOS. 

     

    From the original default Windows 8 on Aspire S3, get the latest BIOS which is v2.17 (at the time of my post). Apply the new BIOS. Then access BIOS and turn off UEFI mode. Reboot. Now the BIOS will recognize your bootable USB (Windows, Linux, whatever)

     

    Nathan

  • oljoe3
    oljoe3 Member Posts: 4 New User

    How about this.....

    I installed and set up Win 7 on a new internal new hard drive.
    Had to use the "legacy" setting to get it to work.

    Now I would like to set up the original hard drive

    with Win 8.1 and boot from that original hard drive using a

    USB connection.  Since the Win 8.1 drive "needs"

    the "UDFI" setting to boot I don't see a way to
    use the "UDFI" setting with the USB connection.

    Does anybody know how to accomplish this?

     

    I have tried the idea of disconnecting the Win 7

    drive with no success.  Taking apart the case

    to swap drives is getting old at this point.

     

     

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