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Iconia Tab 8 W unable to boot from USB

Hi,

I would love to boot my Iconia Tab 8 W from an USB, the UEFI does have the option to boot from USB or PXE so I do suspect it does support that in one way or another.

Currently I am having no luck with a simple OTG drive, I am able to access it from Windows even created the bootable media there but no luck seeing the drive from the UEFI menu(even the boot menu only sees the Windows bootloader).

Anybody has any ideas how to do this? I do not see any dock available for the tablet here, but if there is some I would like to be pointed in the direction(even if it is part of another device package).

Thanks

Accepted answers

aknarts

Actualy I did discover the issue why the install CD is not recognised.

Apparentely most UEFI systems yre 64bit, but here on this tablet the UEFI is 32bit which is quite rare. I did boot different bootloader(rEFInd) which works with IA32, and am now working on how to boot the **bleep** kernel so I can install the system. If anybody has any ideas I am open.

I will keep this open and update it once I get it working with a solution how to install Linux on this ... Smiley Happy

All comments

billsey

You need the UEFI to have the right signature for boot.

aknarts

Forgot to mention, the secure boot is turned off.

padgett

Well first I would create a Recovery Flash drive and make sure that it is able to be recognised as a boot device.

If so I believe to be bootable the drive has to begine as a signed iso and be placed onto a flash drive formatted FAT-32 and with a GPT.

Two pieces of software I have seen able to to this: the Windows 7 ISO to Flash drive tool and Rufus.

Note: Rufus is non-discrimanatory but the Microsoft tool will only create a Flash from an ISO file it recognises (e.g. from MSDN or Win 10 preview).

aknarts

Good pointer with the Windows Recovery Flash, that does actualy work and boots into it, so at least I know it works now. The issue is that I am trying to boot a Linux instalation media which does work great on other UEFI devices with secure boot on, but fails to boot here(the UEFI does not even recognise it and only offers Windows Boot). I did try creating the boot media with Rufus as FAT-32 GPT partitions but that did not seem to work.

Will continue on this and hopefully get this done as this tablet from the hardware standpoint seems like it could offer great Linux support...

padgett

Sounds like a signature issue then. UEFI requires that the boot be digitally signed and this can only be verified against public keys contained in the BIOS library. Further for a machine to be certified for Windows 8(+) it must use a library provided by Microsoft.

And just to add to the confusion Microsoft seems to have two different libraries, one for 32 bit OSs and a second for 64 bit. My 64 bit Switch 12 does not recognise a Windows 8.1-32 CD, only a Win 8.1-64.

I have been looking for a Windows utility that will display the public keys in the library (after all, they are public) however the only thing I have found is Linux source code - does anyone here know of such a utility ? May need to dust off my programming skills.

aknarts

Actualy I did discover the issue why the install CD is not recognised.

Apparentely most UEFI systems yre 64bit, but here on this tablet the UEFI is 32bit which is quite rare. I did boot different bootloader(rEFInd) which works with IA32, and am now working on how to boot the **bleep** kernel so I can install the system. If anybody has any ideas I am open.

I will keep this open and update it once I get it working with a solution how to install Linux on this ... Smiley Happy

padgett

Well sorta. Tabs since my W510 have all had UEFI turned on by default. Early on they said you could turn it off but the Switch 12 is that first I have seen (do any others ?) that supports "Legacy".

BTW is a Iconia Tab 8 W one of the 1GB RAM models ? I don't think they support 64 bit operation.

aknarts

Yeah it is the 1GB model. And no it does not support 64bit OS, but most modern hardware does somehow support 64bit uefi...Got the install media confused. I am now currently battling with the broadcom chip as this issue is now "solved".