I can't boot from any USB device after installing Linux

07
2014-07
  • Intredasting

    Here is my current situation along with the events that followed up to it:

    • I installed Ubuntu 12.10 amd64 to my Lenovo Ideapad S300 by booting to a USB Drive that I prepared with Unetbootin (v583). The USB drive appeared in my BIOS as something along the lines of 'UEFI USB PNY 8 GB'. I went in and created one partition for / and one for swap. (I know, it was a very basic install; I'm new to this sort of thing so I didn't bother with /boot or /home etc.)
    • I want to remove Ubuntu 12.10 and install Ubuntu 12.04 i386 (32-bit version). Unfortunately, I can't because I can no longer boot to any USB device (or SD card for that matter). When I press the Lenovo OneKey button to get to the boot menu, the device simply does not show up. The same thing happens if I go into my BIOS boot order. All I see is the Windows Boot Manager, two instances of the Ubuntu boot manager (both lead to GRUB2), and two boot options that have something to do with ipv4 and ipv6 network boot, or something along those lines (irrelevant).
    • I have tried just about every possible combination, experimenting with multiple USB drives and SD cards, Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 (i386 and amd64 versions), using the Windows built-in formatting tool and the legacy HP formatting utility, using Unetbootin and LiLi USB Creator ... but no luck.
    • I have tried these USBs with another computer (ASUS G75VW) and they work just fine; I can boot from them into Linux with no problem.

    Any ideas on what do do at this point? I really need to remove Ubuntu 12.10, and I would certainly like to be able to boot from USB drives in the future with my Ideapad.

    • Answers
  • Intredasting

    I finally fixed the problem. I had to change the boot mode in my BIOS from [UEFI] to [Legacy Support]. I'm not sure why I was able to boot to the USB drive before installing Ubuntu without having that setting enabled, but alas; I'm not complaining.

  • freechelmi

    Your issue is the way it should behave :

    in UEFI mode, you can only use a 64 Bits linux OS because the EFI loader is 64 bits only.


    • Related Question

    linux - Windows 8 won't boot after Boot Repair
  • Rudolph Gottesheim

    I've got a Sony Vaio laptop. Until yesterday I had Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 installed. Today I upgraded to Windows 8, which killed my OS selection screen. So I booted to Ubuntu 12.10 from a USB stick and ran Boot Repair. This recovered the GRUB screen and let me boot into my Ubuntu 12.04 installation, but now I can' boot Windows 8.

    When I select the option that booted Windows 7 before, it looks like it wants to start Windows 7 (sic) again (black screen, with the text "Windows is loading" or something), but then reboots the machine after a few seconds.

    I'm sure Boot Repair can fix this, but I know far too little about the whole booting thing to know the right settings for it.

    Here's my boot repair report thing.

    Edit: I really want to emphasize that it seems to be trying to start Windows 7. I'm pretty sure Boot Repair selected some old Windows 7 backup files. I already ran Boot Repair once after I installed Ubuntu. Maybe it's using some files or configs it created back then.


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  • Zuck

    I had this issue. Here is how I fixed it:

    1. UEFI booted a USB flash drive which contained the Windows 8 installer.
    2. Clicked Install and chose Custom.
    3. Deleted all System, MSR and Recovery partitions.
    4. Selected the OS partition and clicked Install.
    5. It showed a message that setup will now create system partitions, I clicked OK and it recreated the EFI bootloader again.
    6. Ran the following commands one-by-one in Command Prompt: bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /rebuildbcd