Sony Vaio refuses to boot USB

[glennzo]

As stated, an old Sony Vaio desktop refuses to boot from the USB stick that I created as a FreeNAS boot device. The Vaio, a VGC-RB43 is a desktop computer from several years back. Following the instructions for creating the FreeNAS boot device I booted the Vaio from the previously created FreeNAS CD and installed to the USB stick. That went well. The next step is to reboot, removing the CD and choosing to boot from USB. No go, no matter which one of the 6 USB ports I plug the stick into. I was able to boot from this USB stick on my other desktop and reached the expected FreeNAS configuration screen. That tells me that there is nothing wrong with the USB stick. It is bootable.

I've tried playing with the BIOS. There are the typical settings for default boot device like hard disk, CDROM and USB. Anything USB is greyed out. It says "no USB mass storage device detected". This while the USB stick is inserted. I've also found that on this computer the F11 key is one that will allow choosing the boot device on the fly. There are choices for the hard disk and CDROM. No mention of USB.

This is getting a bit frustrating. Anyone have any experience with these Vaio desktops? Anyone have any thoughts?

Of course I've spent considerable time on Google, web forums, etc.

One more thing. I got frustrated and gave up for a while this morning. Then I went and installed Fedora 17 on the Vaio. Under Fedora 17 the USB stick is recognized through fdisk.

[glenn@vaio ~>$ su -c 'fdisk -l'
Password: 

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x18387c7d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   382328831   191163392   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       382328832   390719487     4195328   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdf: 4022 MB, 4022337536 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7793 cylinders, total 7856128 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90909090

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdf1   *          63     1930319      965128+  a5  FreeBSD
/dev/sdf2         1930383     3860639      965128+  a5  FreeBSD
/dev/sdf3         3860640     3863663        1512   a5  FreeBSD
/dev/sdf4         3863664     3904991       20664   a5  FreeBSD

[Dan]

Nothing in the documentation that I've found so far would indicate that it actually has the ability to boot from USB.

<....>

I've got an old franken-puter AMD AthlonXP 3400+ Barton on an MSI motherboard that will boot from USB connected ZIP, floppy, or USB CDROM ... but to this day refuses to boot a thumb drive.

[glennzo]

You have documentation for this model? The Sony site isn't working that well so I can't get docs from there. Most of the other sites are crap. I've gotten docs for similar models but they don't say what the boxes are capable of booting from. I would think that by the mere fact that in the BOIS I see "no bootable USB mass storage" it is capable but maybe it refers to other USB devices.

[Dan]

Just the two quasi-pertinent pdfs from the website, the user's manual and the sales propaganda flyer.

[Ihatewindows]

Could it be a stupid mistake? Maybe it is disabled or something. Make sure your USB ports aren't dead.

I have a Dell laptop and just found out recently that it can't boot from USB.

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by Dan

...that will boot from USB connected ZIP, floppy, or USB CDROM ... but to this day refuses to boot a thumb drive.

Just curious glennzo, are there advantages to booting from a thumb drive over a CD or DVD? I have a portable USB DVD burner-drive that I use to test - install Linux live CD on hardware without built in CD drive. This works well and is painless

[glennzo]

No advantages from where I stand. When I created this thread I was trying to install FreeNAS on that computer and one of the requirements of FreeNAS is the ability to boot the OS from a thumb drive as that's where the OS resides. All of the hard disks are storage only.

[Adunaic]

Have experienced this before. Some laptops will not boot from all USB ports. You may have to try it in each one individually.

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by glennzo

No advantages from where I stand. When I created this thread I was trying to install FreeNAS on that computer and one of the requirements of FreeNAS is the ability to boot the OS from a thumb drive as that's where it resides. All of the hard disks are storage only.

OK

I am not familiar with FreeNas, but have used Puppy and Knoppix - Live CD - and saved work to other drives.

I never understood the need for a Live CD distro until I worked for a small organization that had donated Windows machines, out of date and most toast. It was very easy to pop in Puppy, get my work done and move on

[Ihatewindows]

It was EXTREMELY hard to manipulate files in Puppy. When I try to copy something it always makes a link instead. And I never know that until I go and try the file in my installed Linux.

[Skull One]

I've seen a similar case with an asus. The usb drive was not detected when booting. The workaround was to boot on the hdd and after one or two seconds, press ctrl-alt-suppr to reboot. And the usb drive was detected. If not, just retry.
It is a weird behavior and I do not know if it can work in your case.