Solved USB stick device, made under Win 7, trying to boot a Dell Optiplex 780

[SIW2]

PE boots fine from usb. Try it on another pc.

You could also try plop.

How to Boot from USB if not supported by BIOS - YouTube

 

[JohnPat]

Progress!!

Hello

Following SIW2's last post, I decided to bite the bullet and borrowed a Dell Latitude E6520.

This machine was running BIOS Rev A19. Tried a boot with the unaltered USB from the last test on the Optiplex, and 'bingo' - boot success straight into Acronis. So the problem is the target machine I am working on, the Dell Optiplex.

I again checked the Dell support website, and it confirms that Rev A15 is the latest BIOS for an Optiplex with my service tag.

So what do I do next - try and load Rev A19 - or assume the machine will never boot from USB because the BIOS isn't configurable for such an action.

Any further observations again gratefully received.

Kind regards
JohnPat

 

[SIW2]

Did you try Plop?

How to Boot from USB if not supported by BIOS - YouTube

 

[JohnPat]

Plop

Hello SIW2

Haven't tried plop yet, just went for the loan of the Latitude to try the existing USB stick. Plop seems to primarily be a boot manager, but my understanding is minimal at present. However I have mailed the author asking how to add on a second executable if I booted into a bare disk with no OS loaded. No reply as yet, but will act on what comes back and report back here.

Regarding the Optiplex as it stands, do you think I have a BIOS issue and need to consider installing Rev A19? What I cannot understand is that if Rev A15 does not actually support USB device booting, why are the options even shown in the F2 and F12 key responses?

Kind regards
JohnPat

 

[SIW2]

What I cannot understand is that if Rev A15 does not actually support USB device booting, why are the options even shown in the F2 and F12 key responses?

That is odd. Perhaps it does, but either there is a fault, or something not set up correctly. Could be a faulty usb port, perhaps.

 

[JohnPat]

Success!

Hello all

Just a short post to say that the problem has been solved.

What I did was change the biscuits I eat after drinking a cup of tea when a problem emerges. I changed from Nice to Custard Creams. In my experience this change allows a deeper dissection of problems.

I then concentrated on why the USB stick boots on the E6520 Latitiude, but not the Optiplex. The difference that surfaced was that I had borrowed the Latitude, and had plugged in the USB before a cold boot, whereas when working with the Optiplex I had been using the restart option - a warm boot. Though a warm reboot did indeed allow booting from a USB connected optical drive, for some reason it does not allow booting from a USB device.

A cold boot will take the system into the Win PE environment and indeed straight into the disk manager.

So I think the real reason is that I am a slow witted 73 year old git.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to my greater understanding of the booting process.

Kind regards
JohnPat

 

[SIW2]

Thanks for the update. News to me. Glad you go it working - eventually.

 

[JohnPat]

Final word....

Hello all

Just to confirm the conditions under which I finally managed to go the Optiplex to boot from a USB.

The boot priority was set to:

1. USB device
2. Sata HD device
3. USB CD/DVD drive
4. Network controller.

A cold boot (i.e turn completely off followed by a front panel restart) from these settings produces, very rapidly (with the horizontal thermometer display about a quarter of the way along the bar), the splash screen with the F12 reminder top right,and the following message top left:

Press any key to boot from USB....

This message is only on the screen for a very short while. Pressing any key will boot from the USB device, in my case WinPE plus Acronis. This message does not appear if you use the warm boot (i.e the restart option) on closing down. If you miss the opportunity, you will boot from the SATA device that is second on the priority list.

Once again thanks to all those who helped me get on top of this problem.

Best wishes
JohnPat