Re: [tlug] Running from USB memory stick (hardware issues)

[Lyle H Saxon <llletters@example.com>]

On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 11:05 AM steve <sjs@example.com> wrote:

On 3/4/21 5:44 PM, Lyle H Saxon wrote:
What seems to work best for me [..........] Is to shut the machine down (not
restart but shut-down), press the power button and after a short time
(maybe a second) insert the drive.

... meaning it will see the device some time after the power button is pressed, but not if it's in the machine to start with?  That's something I haven't tried!  Maybe that will work on the NEC machines.

 

One thing about the lenovo that I hadn't seen before that helped is that
it has both a bios sequence (F2 for this machine -- Ive also seen delete
and f10 depending on mfg) and this has a boot select menu (f12 during
startup).  Sometimes it doesn't see the thumb drive and sometimes when
that happens, un-pluging and pluging back in will make it appear.

All of the laptops I've worked with over the past two years (generally models manufactured around 2011 and 2012 - Lenovo, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and NEC) have BIOS access via F2 soon after hitting the power button.  The thing about the NEC laptops I've tried to boot from a USB device is that I've been able to access the BIOS no problem and to set the BIOS to boot from the USB but it just generates an error message of not finding an OS (this on OS-less machines BTW).  Since they do boot from the optical drive when set to do so, it's been okay, but I've set up a few computers (for friends) that had broken optical drives and then it was essential to boot via USB.  This has made me a bit fearful of NEC laptop computers, as if the optical drive doesn't work, then how to install the OS.  But I'll try unplugging the USB device and plugging it back in and see what happens.

As to the HP, look through the OS.  There should be a model number
somewhere in there.

That HP computer has W10 in it and I did indeed try that, but all that I could find was a serial number, and running an Internet search on that just brought up entirely unrelated stuff.  It just occurred to me today that I should try getting into the BIOS, and there might be some useful info there (assuming the BIOS is accessible - with that sealed machine it wouldn't surprise if it wasn't)...

Anyway, what you say about the machine possibly not recognizing the device might be it... I'll try that, although in an OS-less machine, there is very little time between hitting the power button and the machine telling you there is no OS....

- Lyle