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Main Forum => General Computer Support => Topic started by: Tacotardis42 on December 25, 2015, 09:19:13 am
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Hello all! I'm trying to run a bootable USB on my windows 7 emachines, and when I select it as a boot option it gives me a blank screen with a flashing line that looks like it's awaiting input, like in command prompt. If I click anything, it makes a beeping noise (From computer itself, not plugged into speakers) and if I hit Ctrl alt delete it reboots. The USB is confirmed to work on other computers. I have done a proper power reset, and I have run Windows repair in safe mode. I have not checked, but I am almost positive I have BIOS and not UEFI. What can I do? P.S Merry Christmas! :cheesy:
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It would be best if you booted to the BIOS to see if you have UEFI/Secure Boot and there is an option to enable Legacy USB.
Have you also tried a different USB port ?
When you plug the USB in within Windows, does AutoPlay open for you to view the files ?
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I'll try a different usb port, and I'm pretty sure I only have bios because I have two options at starup, F12 for boot options (let's me choose boot device such as usb, cd/dvd etc.) and del for setup that I have never tried. It does not autoplay. How do I double check uefi\bios? P.S The Windows\Panther folder is empty, so that's not an option, and it has run a live usb before, so I know it can.
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I have verified that is indeed BIOS. On another note, in the setup options (I decided to check there) It has quick boot, and quiet boot as options. They are both enabled. As far as I can tell they have nothing to do with secure boot, right?
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I make a lot of bootable USBs and most work perfectly first time , but every now and then I get one that
works on one machine but not another.
You have BIOS and not UEFI , so that's unlikely to be the problem .
My usual fix is simply to choose a different tool for making the USB .
There are plenty of good free ones to choose from .... Rufus , Unetbootin , LiveLinux , Pendrive Linux and others .
Or you could go for the one with the most catchy name .... Win32DiskImager , which is actually pretty good ,
and it works fine with 64-bit images as well !
There are always the odd few ISOs that won't play nicely with certain specific tools .
I just never bothered to find out the reason why ..... one more DFK/DFC .
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It may be as Jethro says, but for elimination disable the Quick Boot - haven't a clue what a quiet boot is.
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Ok will do Boggin! Also Jethro, since I'm not very familiar with these things, but I used grub4dos as my boot manager for the usb, but can unetbootin do *roughly* the same thing? I've used it before for an ubuntu usb install before, but can it do a custom one as well? And sorry if I'm saying something nonsensical, but I'm new to the world of booting up with anything other than my hard drive.
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Oh and Boggin, while I'm in the BIOS menu, quiet boot is:
"Disabled: Displays
normal POST message.
Enabled: Displays OEM
Logo instead of POST messages."
It is enabled. Disableing quick boot now.
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Well ok then, when I boot from usb with quick boot disabled, it gives me some detailed information, possible about my drivers and partitions with the text "<esc> to boot in.....[10 to 1 second countdown]", and if I click escape or wait for the countdown it gives me the exact same problem. You can check that off the list.
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Aaah grub for dos do you have multiple boot disks on that usb drive? And if your computer has usb 3.0 don't use it use the other ports another thing is check for usb settings in bios do you have a compatibility mode?
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I'll try my best to answer! It is just one boot disk, as far as I know my computer is not using usb 3.0 ports (I think?) and I don't think I have usb options in bios but I'll check tommorrow.
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I'm not certain exactly what it is you want to do.
All of those tools I mentioned perform essentially the same task .
There very few options for the user apart from choosing the ISO , choosing the destination drive (eg a USB stick )
choosing which format ( if formatting is needed ) and in some cases , adding a persistent file.
From memory , I think Rufus offers a few more options (boxes to tick ) but that's about it.
If you want multiple , bootable ISOs on the same stick then YUMI is what you need.
If you want to modify / customize Grub4dos there is a tool at Sourceforge called "GRUB4DOS Toolbox "
That's about the extent of it .... maybe it's of some help to you.
PS - Good advice from Julian in his post above .... USB 3 is best avoided for this type of thing
also , Thumbdrives that come with built-in security ( ie encryption ) can sometimes be troublesome.
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Hi, Tacko
The pointer by Julian that is it usb compatible bios settings is a must for booting from usb. In older machines, you may have bios settings. Please go to bios , boot order menu and find if there is option to boot from usb/pendrive. If those options are not present, then you have no choice but to use other tools to boot from usb. It is not usb 2.0 or 3.0 port, It will boot if you have this option to boot from usb in your boot priority device settings. Check and report
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Hi, Tacko
The pointer by Julian that is it usb compatible bios settings is a must for booting from usb. In older machines, you may have bios settings. Please go to bios , boot order menu and find if there is option to boot from usb/pendrive. If those options are not present, then you have no choice but to use other tools to boot from usb. It is not usb 2.0 or 3.0 port, It will boot if you have this option to boot from usb in your boot priority device settings. Check and report
From the opening post, Taco was able to select it as a first boot option, but for AutoPlay not opening when plugging it in within Windows tends to point to another problem - could be a problem in the USB Controllers in Device Management that the machine isn't seeing it.
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Hi, Tacko
The pointer by Julian that is it usb compatible bios settings is a must for booting from usb. In older machines, you may have bios settings. Please go to bios , boot order menu and find if there is option to boot from usb/pendrive. If those options are not present, then you have no choice but to use other tools to boot from usb. It is not usb 2.0 or 3.0 port, It will boot if you have this option to boot from usb in your boot priority device settings. Check and report
From the opening post, Taco was able to select it as a first boot option, but for AutoPlay not opening when plugging it in within Windows tends to point to another problem - could be a problem in the USB Controllers in Device Management that the machine isn't seeing it.
In regards to that, my computer can run the usb perfectly fine, and I can access the files on it, but since autoplay doesn't open when it's plugged in, would that still indicate the USB controllers are at fault? And also, changing the boot order to my flash drive first, hard disk second, did nothing. It just skipped the flash drive and went straight to the hard disk. This did not not happen before. The usb still works properly.
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I'm going to update my usb related drivers now, hopefully that will clear things up somewhat.
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The driver would normally load when you very first plugged the USB stick in, so not sure how you are going to update them unless it's related to this tutorial - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/165554-usb-driver-general-fix-problems.html
Edit - it looks like Shane has fixed my non-email notifications :cheesy: :cheesy: :cheesy:
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The driver would normally load when you very first plugged the USB stick in, so not sure how you are going to update them unless it's related to this tutorial - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/165554-usb-driver-general-fix-problems.html
Edit - it looks like Shane has fixed my non-email notifications :cheesy: :cheesy: :cheesy:
As far as I can tell, the drivers are loaded (I could easily be wrong though), but on a slightly different note, are there any good driver updaters out there on the net? I have the IObit driver booster one, but I know that it sometimes hides drivers unless you have the pro version. Do you know any good alternitives?
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I doubt any driver updater program will find drivers for USBs.
Other than that tutorial, I would look to your chipset or video drivers for the Controllers.
This laptop has integral AMD CPU/Graphics so the video drivers are the chipset drivers, but your computer or motherboard support site should list what is available.
Have a run through that tutorial to see if at least if the USB can be read in Windows with AutoPlay and then try it on a boot.
Do you have another USB stick you can plug in to rebuild the INFCACHE.1 folder or any other USB device ?
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I have done all things in the tutorial with no problems. It did not fix my problem though. All of my drivers appear to be up-to-date.
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hi, Taco
It seems that your bios system supports flash drive boot. Did you get past POST , then you get the command promt blinking and sound of the system, denotes that it is having problem in POST stage. Did you check the Ram. Defective Ram also cause this problem if it is defective, or unerased memory in it. Just try this. . Remove the Rams , and clean them with soft cloth and place them again. Check. if it ok, then boot . If not , remove the battery cmos and clean it and then put in the place. Try this.
There is another way, just remove the battery , short circuit, the two nodes, by making contact the battery base with the side holders of battery, thereby erasing electronic memory from residue, if any. Place the battery and try to boot.
Please remove the plug from socket before attempting this.
Normally your failure to get past POST stage, is caused by RAM. If one of the Ram is defective and the other is working, this may result in failure of boot. Try to remove the extra ram if any, leaving the least memory required to test. Failure of RAM is the major cause of the computer not to boot up,
Did you check the uSB whether it is bootable
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When you plug the USB in and then tap F12 to get to the boot order change, is the USB listed by name ?
As it works on other machines then there shouldn't be a need to format it and recreate it - I use Windows USB/DVD Burner Tool for my Win 7 bootable media.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool
I was looking for this MS Fixit yesterday but couldn't find it https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/mats/windows_usb_diagnostics
Plug the USB in and give the Fixit a run to see if it reports anything.
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Did you check the uSB whether it is bootable
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Did you check the uSB whether it is bootable
From earlier posts, it has worked in other machines - it just isn't being read on this one within Windows or is it being recognised as having an OS to boot up with.
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Hi, Boggins,
Is that means that he has tried to check the boot in running windows on other computers?
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Yes, apparently it boots up fine on other machines.
It's just that when it's plugged in within Windows on this machine, AutoPlay isn't coming up to read the files on it, so it isn't being recognised at all and that is what we are trying to fix - without any success to date, but I'm waiting for feed back as to whether that MS Fixit will do anything.
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hi, Taco
It seems that your bios system supports flash drive boot. Did you get past POST , then you get the command promt blinking and sound of the system, denotes that it is having problem in POST stage. Did you check the Ram. Defective Ram also cause this problem if it is defective, or unerased memory in it. Just try this. . Remove the Rams , and clean them with soft cloth and place them again. Check. if it ok, then boot . If not , remove the battery cmos and clean it and then put in the place. Try this.
There is another way, just remove the battery , short circuit, the two nodes, by making contact the battery base with the side holders of battery, thereby erasing electronic memory from residue, if any. Place the battery and try to boot.
Please remove the plug from socket before attempting this.
Normally your failure to get past POST stage, is caused by RAM. If one of the Ram is defective and the other is working, this may result in failure of boot. Try to remove the extra ram if any, leaving the least memory required to test. Failure of RAM is the major cause of the computer not to boot up,
Did you check the uSB whether it is bootable
I'm sorry, but if I need to this to fix it, I'd rather leave it unable to boot a usb than unable to boot :shocked:
Anyway Boggin, the device is listed by name, and I will run the microsoft fixit asap. And jraju, should I disable quiet boot for you? It says something about POST tests in it's description :p
I'll keep you guys POSTed!
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Hi, Taco
use the ms fixit . Quite boot is otherwise called silent boot. If you disable, then all the POST messges, including your mother board symbol would show. That is all there is to it.
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The ms fixit did not fix my problem.
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Getting nowhere fast on this one :confused:
Do you have any other USB sticks with something on to see if it will read those ?
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Hi,
Please confirm how did you enable boot in bios menu. What is the menu you selected. If it is supported in bios, then there is nothing wrong if it is booted from the pen drive. It should work.
One last suggestion. Pl download plbt.iso. Download the iso to a disc, cd, by burning the iso file using imgburn.
Then you select the boot priority to cd dvd . Then it will auto boot from cd and will give options in your screen the boot choices. You select Pen drive , move the cursor down and then enter in Pendrive option.from it. It should work. Otherwise pl report.
I am enclosing this iso here. Please download and then try to burn it using nero or imgburn. Then report back
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Boggin: I have another USB stick that will not boot on any computer that I've tried! :confused: I'm planning to get a better USB soon, this one is only 1 gig and it's ancient (could that be an issue?). Could it be faulty ram? How could I find out?
Jraju: When I try to boot from usb, I click f12 during startup to activate boot menu, and boot from my usb in the resulting menu. If I change boot order in the bios settings, it produces the same result. I have successfully booted another usb once, which makes me think that either something broke recently, or that Jethro was right and I should use another tool. I will follow your instructions first though.
P.S Thank you both for your help so far :cheesy:
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What is the ISO that is on that stick - Win 7 needs a 4GB stick.
Regardless of what you have on it though, it should still be able to read it in Windows.
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Hi, did you try the iso i attached . Burn on cd, using your burn tool. Imgburn is free tool you could use. Just boot from cd. Plugging the pen drive containing the OS. It will show the boot options. Select Pen drive and then enter to confirm from pendrive. That should be booting for you for sure.
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Hi, Boggin, you are correct, 1 gb is not enough. How did he make the usb tool is not clear. It should be atleast 4 gb How then it was working on other computers.? strange
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The plop boor manager failed, but at least this time it failed spectacularly! As for the 4 gb thing, what? It worked fine on two other computers, a win xp desktop and win 7 laptop. And if it helps any, I am trying to use Hiren's boot cd (usb?), and I followed the instructions at http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk .
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What ISO is on the stick ?
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Hi, Taco,
The win 7 iso is having size of near 4 gb. HIren boot cd may be helping it to boot from pen drive. But what the pendrive contain? Is the OS, that could be compressed to 1 gb. I do not think so. You should have 4 gb pendrive and it should be formatted before copying win files.
I do not understand, how hiren cd would contain the OS.
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Hi, Taco,
The win 7 iso is having size of near 4 gb. HIren boot cd may be helping it to boot from pen drive. But what the pendrive contain? Is the OS, that could be compressed to 1 gb. I do not think so. You should have 4 gb pendrive and it should be formatted before copying win files.
I do not understand, how hiren cd would contain the OS.
No, it is not any OS, it is the utility Hiren's Boot Cd. I'm not trying to install windows. Sorry if I made it sound that way :p The ISO on the flash drive is Hiren's.
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Hi, Then what is the necessity to use it any way? Your thread starts as if you are having problem in installation of windows OS.
That what are you trying to run thro hiren boot cd or dvd usb. the thread owner should explain the things perfectly so that the solution is given correctly. May i know for what purpose, you are uisng hiren boot usb. Did you go thro, what it would do, if you attempt that in running windows.
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I sincerely apologize for any misconception that occurred, I was completely unaware of it. Hiren's boot cd is a useful rescue disk that can help fix your computer if you get a virus and are unable to boot, and I figured it would be a useful tool to have because I like things like that. And again, I apologize for any misunderstandings.
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It would have been helpful if we had known what the bootable stick was for as we assumed it was an OS boot USB, but it should still have been able to read it in Windows - I'd reformat the stick to FAT32 and recreate it.
NTFS is better for Windows but some media players can have problems with it, so FAT32 which is the default format for USB sticks may be better.
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Hi, if you run those things on running windows, it will spoil the whole thing. These are to be tried only on emergency purposes. If you run on open windows, then it will kill the boot process and the machine would fail to boot.
The tools should be handled carefully. For that purpose, there are available rescue disk option in free av programs like avast, panda etc.
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Boggin: I've already done all of that 0_o, should I try recreating it with a different program like Jethro suggested?
jraju: Don't worry :cheesy: I'll use it correctly!
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Well, you've got nothing to lose as it's at a dead end at the moment - which tool did you use to create it or does Hiren have its own burner ?
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I followed the instructions above, which calls for copying the files from the iso manually into the usb and using grub4dos for the bootloader, but now I'm trying a different way using unnetbootin. I hope this works.
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Your previous method seemed to work okay on other machines so not sure why it shouldn't on this one, but.....
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Hi, instead you could use avast or panda av and use rescue disk. It will save you from all sorts of trouble.