Can't boot LiveUSB on desktop, post ignores it and goes straight to grub.
 

I even tried chainloading drive but that didn't work either. I have tried 2 different usbs, one for Mint and one for Crunchbang, both will boot on my laptop, not on my desktop. I can't figure out what the problem is.

I recently removed one of my 3 internal harddrives (bringing me to 2) and surprisingly was able to boot from usb then, but I restarted the comp, and booted into my main OS. When I went back to try and boot from usb again it was again ignored. Anyone have any ideas? I will provide any and all information requested.

EDIT 0202 3-6-14

I just depowered both hdds and turned on comp with usb plugged in, still wasn't seen.

What are your BIOS boot options?

Bios boot options are pretty standard: FLOPPY, LS120 (i think), +HDD (expandable menu with all my hard drives listed), CD-ROM, ZIP, USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, LEGACY LAN.

Why are you chain loading a usb?

Why don't you boot it as a hard drive order directly? Don't use any of the usb boot selections. Use hard drive.

If anything, and for some reason you needed to use grub then you wouldn't chain a live usb unless it may have used syslinux or odd loader. (and it would have to have full support for usb (maybe usb3 also)).

I tried chainloading as a last-ditch effort, it wasn't shown in the hdd list, and the usb options were the only ones that would have normally booted the drive before.

It may be true of some older smaller flash drives. Most of the modern drives will show up as a hard drive in bios.

Power off, unplug ac and press power button a few times. The attach usb and then boot to bios. Does usb show? If not the keep usb in and reboot to bios. Does it show now?

Easy enough to get a $4 flash and try a new install to usb. Try one of the hybrid iso's and dd it over or do a regular install from cd/dvd to usb. Be sure to remove internal drives so you don't put grub on wrong drive.

My bios does not show USB devices as hard drives. I've done all that, doesn't result in what you are saying.

Turns out, it does show up there, but not all my drives do. Before when the drive just was not being picked up it would only show my internal hdds in the HDD list. I just tried to boot from a freshly made LiveUSB and it worked. I made it on my laptop as opposed to my desktop so I think my desktop just wasn't making them properly or something. I used the same command on both systems (dd if=/path/to/iso of=/dev/USBDRIVE bs=4M; sync).

As for a hybrid iso that's a good idea. Is it possible to install to a usb drive from a cd/dvd loaded in a VM?

Glad you solved it and posted the solution.

Yes, since you did dd the image to a usb, it would have had to have been a hybrid image. They don't even bother to mention it on distros for some reason. Guess they assume.

I almost always create real installs to usb's by using a virtual machine. I simply don't create a hard drive in the vm. Boot to iso and attach usb to install to. Some distro's are fussy where I have to finish install by rebooting from usb. Those may require you to boot to usb on host and have a real cd/dvd available to finish install.

Not sure this is correct. (dd if=/path/to/iso of=/dev/USBDRIVE bs=4M; sync). Mine tend to be /dev/sdx and I never use bs= or sync.

So if I'm going to dd, it has to by a hybrid image. I never heard or read that anywhere.

Sounds like an interesting challenge to overcome. I'll try it out the way you say here, but do you know of any good tutorials or references for this type of task?

[/quote]

When I say USBDRIVE I mean the sdX of where ever the system puts it. On my desktop it's usually sdc or d depending on other usb drives I have plugged in. On my laptop it's always sdb. The bs is more out of habit than anything. I read once in a thread that it tends to write more accurately if you specify the block size, so I started doing it. Later I found that it made little to no difference, but I keep doing it out of habit. Sync is just to make sure everything is cleared from the buffer correctly.

In this case, hybrid is a term coined to mean the iso image can boot boot a cd/dvd and has been adapted to boot from a usb (were dd is used). It is kind of a recent change on distro's. In general you can't use an image made for an optical boot to also boot from usb. I forget what all the changes were exactly but the image needed some changes at mkiso time.

The VM deal works great usually. It is really a safe way to create a usb that has grub where you want it. Never let installers do what they could do. If it can mess up your data, then protect it.

An interesting page for efi.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/USBStickUEFIHowto

Turns out, issue wasn't solved. I made a live usb of Gparted using their USB specific instructions found here and downloaded the gparted-live-0.18.0-2-amd64.zip package here. Still wound up with a LiveUSB that my laptop would recognize, but my desktop still will not recognize the LiveUSB. Any help would be appreciated!

Is this an old BIOS PC or a UEFI? If it is UEFI is it set to "Legacy BIOS Compatibility"? If it is BIOS, do you have USB set to legacy? Those settings even for Keyboard and Mouse will affect some thumbdrives.

It's bios. Here are the two menus that are most pertinent, and the main menu of my bios. Everything looks right to me; legacy usb storage detect is enabled, keyboard and mouse are separate things, looks right to me. I could be wrong though.

Gparted is goofy so we can't tell. I'd pull the power to the internal drive(s), boot to a cd/dvd and load the usb just like it was a hard drive. It should then have grub on the usb.

Did the usb ever boot? It could be that some leftover of a loader or syslinux is left on it. Might re-partition it back to be sure. Some usb's fail after some time. Could be that you need to get HP tools to fix usb. Generally most usb's can work by just loading syslinux on it.

Get a new usb that is sold to be bootable maybe?

I know the usb boots. It is stated explicitly in the main post that I have tried 2 drives, both of which boot perfectly fine on my laptop, but will not boot on my desktop. They are obviously capable of it, just not on my desktop for whatever reason.

I have completely formatted both drives numerous times. Rewritten partition tables, cleared everything to start over only to do it again. What exactly would HP tools do for this situation?

Also, I have tried pulling power to all internal devices that boot anything, leaving only the usb drives (flash drives) connected as a bootable medium, and the screen I was left at said something to the affect of "No bootable device found"