Aspire S3 won't boot from USB flash drive

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

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sspak9

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

EditedBaseline

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

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)