w510, won't boot from USB, anyone else having this one?

Ok... long story short, or maybe not so short. To correct an issue acer support suggested i do a recovery on my w510-1620 32gb tablet. Since the tablet was only 32gb it doesn't have a restore partition only dvds.

Attempt 1 - Using the DVD with my HP external DVD.

- Put the system disk in the drive, rebooted computer, ignores the dvd and boots to internal drive.

- Drive files are accessible on the dvd after boot though.

- Went into bios added admin password, disabled secure boot, change boot order for USB first.

- rebooted again, ignores dvd and boots to internal drive.

- Added a AC powered usb hub, put dvd on the hub, and rebooted. Device gets to the acer screen and freezes.

- Went into bios turned on F12 boot menu, added a USB keyboard to hub.

- Rebooted, pressed F12 and got boot menu... windows boot manager is ony option, pick it to boot from internal drive.

Attempt 2 - Using a bootable USB drive

- Used diskpart on my windows 8 desktop to create a bootable usb drive. copied system disk to the boot drive.

- test booted drive on another computer and it boots.

- Connect boot drive to w510 and reboot... gets to the acer splash screen and locks up.

Ive been through the ringer with acer support, not much real progress. I have 1-2 days to return this, but hoping to find a solution before then. If you can't boot from USB then if the OS crashes you own a brick.

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padgett

Lots of threads on this: Basically the W510 is "UEFI only". That means it will only boot from a UEFI signed device. Of the three disks, only the one marked "Systen DVD" is bootable but I had the same problem, stuck on splash screen. Use two different DVD drives. Same-same.

Go to the other thread but the only way I could get everything to go is by creating an ISO of the system drve, copying to a 4GB flash (will hold all three disks) making sure it was FAT32, and booting from that. You need at least a USB mouse but mouse an keyboard on a powered hub is best.

Good luck.

Alchemist42

Padgett, i thought you had been through something similar.

So what did you use to great the bootable USB that you copied the ISOs too, and what did you use to rip the ISOs from the disks?

I tried using DIskPart to create a bootable Fat32 USB drive and copying the system disk files to it... but that just hung on startup too.

Alchemist42

Thanks very much for your help btw. I've spent days chatting with acer support and they don't have a clue abou it.

I had read about UEFI being required but not sure if thats the disk... or the disk drive or what.

Alchemist42

The thing i don't quite get though... is isnt the Recovery System disk UEFI signed already... since it came from acer, just not sure why it doesn't work but will if you rip it to an ISO and write it to a usb drive using something like isotousb.