I have a LiveUSB drive from which I can boot my laptops (an S76 and a ThinkPad). It's past time a friend upgraded her Meerkat (model=ment2), so I tried booting it from the LiveUSB ... and failed. This seems odd, because I know I have previously installed Ubuntu and Mint on this ment2 from its external USB CD/DVD player (it does not have internal CD/DVD).
Note also that the ment2's motherboard (a Zotac with AMI BIOS) does not have a separate boot-order menu (per Ian Santopietro in 2011), as with my laptops. Instead, I did the following:
1. Power down (`sudo shutdown -Ph now`), power up.
2. At the Zotac splash screen,
2.1. hit key=Del to enter AMI BIOS
2.2. enter supervisor password
2.3. insert LiveUSB
3. In the BIOS,
3.1. mainmenu>Boot>Boot Device Priority
3.2. here I assumed I would see at least 2 boot devices (HD and USBD), and I would ensure the USBD was first in boot order. Instead, I only saw the HD available.
4. Exit BIOS, boot selected device.
So I'm wondering, how to fix? I searched this forum and noted this subthread, in which a similar problem is caused when the OP's netbook has an SD card in its slot. The ment2 doesn't have that problem, but I know that it has a USB keyboard and wireless mouse. I know neither peripheral shipped with the ment2, but I don't know if I installed from the USB CD/DVD before or after the current peripherals arrived :-( and I also know that I can't drive the BIOS without a keyboard.
So I'm wondering: do I need to hunt down a PS/2 keyboard to troubleshoot why I can't boot the USB drive? Or is there something else I can try first?
Bookmarks