Startup Sequence - Booting from USB drive on older NetVista & ThinkCentre machines?

[jwooden]

I work with several organizations that have older NetVista and ThinkCentre machines

Example machine types would include:

8307-xxx NetVista

8113-xxx

8143 -xxx

I have found that the 8307 (even with the latest BIOS) does not appear to be able to boot a USB device (e.g. a thumb drive). Does anyone know if this support can be added or if I am missing something?

I have not checked yet but fear the 8113 & 8143 machines might be in trouble there as well....

Thanks for any input!

[losmeme · Accepted solution]

Booting from a USB drive is kinda new. Netvistas don't support that at all, AFAIK. It was introduced with ThinkCentres, and it is not functionality that can be added after the fact. Boot order in the BIOs is really the only easy way of telling, and you have to look there first, as often times it has been excluded from boot order all together. After that, F12 is your friend.

[jwooden]

Thanks, I was hoping for a "magic bullet" but am not surprised that none exists 

I reckon we'll have to stay in the dark ages until budgets free up ...

[merville]

Hi All,

I've got a similar issue in that I just picked up an 8808 that had no HD. I put in a installed a brand new HD, put my XP install disc in and can't get to the BIOS to get it to boot from the disc as it doesn't know that there is a keyboard connected.

Ever seen anything like this?

Thank for your time.

[jwooden]

Wow... that's weird....

I assume you are using a USB-interface KB since the 808 has no PS/2 ports right?

I do not have the manual handy for the 8808, so don't know if there is a CMOS "reset" jumper on the motherboard or not, if not or you don't want to look you could pull the coin battery out and leave it out for a few hours with machine unplugged. At that point it should boot to BIOS with the invalid CMOS config. error and that should allow you to access the BIOS and sort things out...

Well... "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" ....

[merville]

Yup - USB KB as the 8808 has no PS/2 port.

I'm going to take a different KB home from work today and see if perhaps my KB has some broken keys that I just didn't know about (long shot). I had pulled the battery last night but only for about 15mins or so and it's now giving me boot errors before asking to hit F1 to enter set up, but F1 doesn't seem to do anything.

Thanks for the feedback! Pretty frustrated last night.

[jwooden]

well since you are now getting the "F1" prompt it sounds like a KB or port problem.

In addition to different KB you could try other ports (one on the front of the machine say...)

Other than that mmmmmmmmmmm it could be serious.....