Can't boot up from USB Drive; compaq Evo D500

JosephS · 11-23-2008, 09:21 AM

I have the bios setup to boot from the USB first, but the bios is by-passing it.
What else do I need to do with this computer?
I tried to find information on HP's site about a bios update, but only found some downloads for windows.

This is the information on my computer:

Quote:

BIOS Information
Vendor: Compaq
Version: 686Y2 v2.11
Release Date: 02/27/2002
Address: 0xE0000
Runtime Size: 128 kB
ROM Size: 512 kB

System Information
Manufacturer: Compaq
Product Name: Evo D500
Version:
Serial Number: 6Y25JYFZ309N
UUID: 35D862FA-EE55-BD11-B038-4E391078B020
Wake-up Type: Power Switch

Base Board Information
Manufacturer: Compaq
Product Name: 077Ch
Version: Not Specified
Serial Number: 6Y25JYFZ309N

Thanks.

irishbitte · 11-23-2008, 10:50 AM

Have you set a boot flag on the usb disk using fdisk or so?

JosephS · 11-23-2008, 02:46 PM

I tried to access the USB drive with cfdisk and got this message:

Quote:

FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 0: Partition begins after end-of-disk
Press any key to exit cfdisk

I made a boot disk for Slackware with this Drive. The partition is Fat 16.
This was what was on when I bought it.

I made a new partition with

Code:

cfdisk -z /dev/sda

and made it bootable.
cfdisk now reads the partition , but still can't boot boot up with the USB Drive.

Do I need to reformat the Drive?

I can't remember how I installed Slackware and Debian. Do I make the file system first, then
partition it?

Thanks.