Friday 10 February 2012

Booting an Phoenix Award BIOS v6.00pg from a USB pen drive

I had some difficulties getting a low power PC to boot Freenas from USB.
These instructions describe how to prepare a USB  pen drive and a PC for booting Freenas from USB.


Use DISKPART to LIST DISK, SELECT DISK <number> and CLEAN the disk (careful to choose the USB disk). This ensures there are no partitions on the disk.

Format the USB pen drive with HPUSBDisk.exe.
Format the disk with FAT32.
Use PhysDiskWrite and PhysGUI.exe to burn the  Freenas image to the USB disk.

Check the computer's BOIS settings:
Phoenix - AwareBOIS

Advanced BIOS Features
Hard Disk Boot Priority:
  1. 1. USB-HDD0 A-Data USB Flash Driv 
  2. 2. Bootable Add-in Cards 
  3. 3. SATA1 
  4. 4. SATA 2
First Boot Device: USB-ZIP
Second Boot Device: Disabled
Third Boot Device: Disabled
Boot Other Device: Disabled

Integrated Peripherals
Onboard Device Function >
USB Mass Storage Device Boot Setting > USB Flash Drive 0.0 : FDD Mode
USB Keyboard Legacy Support: Enabled
USB Mouse Legacy Support: Enabled
USB Storage Legacy Support: Enabled

I don't know whether it helped, but I had a PS2 keyboard plugged in instead of a USB keyboard.







9 comments:

  1. Thanks for this, I'm trying to use this method to boot into Linux as my Windows machine fails to launch succesfully. My BIOS is the same version as yours but I do not have the USB-HDD0 A-Data USB Flash Driv option under Hard Disk Boot Priority nor USB Mass Storage Device Boot Setting option under Integrated Peripherals. Have you got any ideas how I can find these options in the BIOS Setup ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Enlightened !! Why I didn't read your instructions I don't know ... I have just set the USB Keyboard, Mouse and Storage Legacy support to enabled and the USB Flash drive boots the PC, many thanks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad it helped. It can easily turn into a waste of an afternoon trying to find out the settings!

    ReplyDelete
  4. It doesn't work !!! My screen displays "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"
    Anyway,I cant see "USB Storage Legacy Support"

    ReplyDelete
  5. My BIOS is Phoenix Award BIOS v6.00pg too

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you very very much !!
    This post has saved my life :x :x

    ReplyDelete
  7. please help me by video or picture not working see proof

    ReplyDelete
  8. any one help me i am usin award bios v6.00 and 2008

    send any idea how to use bootable pendrive

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is a great instruction, especially for inexperienced users. If you want to get a safe bootloader, then you need to reinstall the driver for your flash drive. Here you can find a lot of drivers for different manufacturers. I advise you to do so, that would protect themselves from bigger problems that will take more time to his decision.

    ReplyDelete