Unusual request: how to boot a USB 3.0 drive connected to USB 3.0 port on PC with NO USB 3.0 boot support
Hi!
I've a very old but still working well PC, MB Asus P5Q, that have only USB 2.0 port and relative boot support, but not USB 3.0 boot support (I've added some USB 3.0 expansion board).
I've looked for any solution.
Tested PLOP boot manager 6 (that should support USB 3.0 boot) but it hangs.
Looked for a chainboot solution, booting a USB 2.0 pendrive that will boot a USB 3.0 drive connected to a USB 3.0 port.
Tested AIO Boot but seems not supporting or seeing the additional USB 3.0 expansion card.
PLOP 6 iso seems not bootable neither by Rufus or BalenaEtcher.
Tested PLOP Linux, start menu appears but still PLOP boot manager 6 hangs.
Someone knows a working solution?
I want to try other OSes, but booting from USB 2.0 is a real pain!!!
Thanks in advance!
When you legacy boot from the easy2boot usb drive, hold down the shift key to load the fast usb 2 driver built into grub4dos. You should see a text message when the driver loads and detects the usb drive.
Try all usb ports.
PS for testing pbm6, try unplugging the add on usb card.
Also, try using the usb3 card but disable the onboard usb 2 ports in bios setup.
The maybe it won't hang?
Thanks!
I'll surely try your first suggestion, because unplugging the card is difficult, is a tower PC and the two PCI Express card are inside.
But i suppose that your advice is to verify if the cause of hung depends on additional cards. If so, I don't know if there is a valid alternative. And if it's worth it.
So I'll try to boot a easy2boot pen drive plugged in a native USB 2.0 port, and check if holding shift key shows something.
Anyway, with the current BIOS (the last one made by ASUS) the additional USB 3.0 card are not recognized as "bootable", and any device conneted to it is not shown in the BIOS boot menu.
Anyway I can try to disable USB 2.0 onboard and check what happen.
Thanks again!
You can't boot from the add in usb card, but you can burn a CD with pbm6 and boot from that and then maybe it will see the addin card?
To boot to PBM6 using Easy2Boot
- Download the zip file at https://download.plop.at/pbm6/pbm6-test-20210909.zip
- Extract the \pbm6-test-20210909\2_bios\linux\pbm6 file to the \_ISO\MAINMENU folder on the E2B drive
- Make a PBM6.mnu file at \_ISO\MAINMENU\PBM6.mnu containing the text:
title Plop Boot Manager v6
kernel $HOME$/pbm6
boot
Hi Steve, and thanks for your instructions!
Just tested.
E2B pendrive modified as indicated and connected to an onboard USB 2.0 port boot perfectly (as usual 🙂 ), and Plop Boot Manager 6 starts.
Then, if I choose the first choice "load drivers", it hangs at 1/4 of progress bar and don't respond anymore to any key.
If, after another reboot I choose "setup" it hangs immediately and don't respond anymore to any key.
Now I'll try your first advice, but maybe my HW is in some way incompatible with this (niche) task.
Thanks again for your advices !!!
Very kind!
I could not get PBM6 to work on any of my PCs either. It either hung during startup or I got a menu but the USB keyboard stopped working.
Did you try holding down SHIFT key as E2B starts to boot?
Just tested.
Error 81.
Then E2B starts normally.
And just found this page that you wrote long time ago that seems to close the question:
https://rmprepusb.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-cant-i-boot-from-usb-30-ports-on-my.html
I don't know if now there are any usb 3.x addon card that support boot, but maybe it's not worth it.
Thanks again!
Maybe if you removed the USB 3 card and try SHIFT again? It will only work in the USb 2 ports.
The grub4dos USb 2 driver is faster than most BIOS USB 2 drivers.
Of course, you need a fast USB 2 or USB 3 drive as well. Cheap USB 2 drives or SD card+USB 2 readers are always really slow!
There is a Test Speed option in the E2B UTILITIES menu to test the speed of the USB driver+drive.
No, I haven't removed USB 3.0 cards, because PC is in a bad place and I need to do a lot of work to extract and open it, and then do the test when still open...
When I'll have enough "determination" 🙂 I'll do.
Anyway, if grub4dos works with onboard USB 2.0, is useless because what I like to do is to boot from USB 3.0, or at least boot a E2B usb 3 drive or even Ventoy with the speed of a 3.0 port.
No problem regards drives, I use your recommended Sandisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 (Gen 1) for both.
Thanks a lot for your attention and time spent!