T420s will not boot to USB jump drive

[tripplec]

I am not sure why you'd want to boot from a USB 2.0 port, its quite slow. The eSATA is much better suited.

If you go into the BIOS and change the boot order so the the USB port is above the DVD or Sata HD it should boot. Thats the way all other systems work. Nothing to do with the splash screen etc.

[orbulat]

here comes another situation

i installed win7 to usb 3.0 hdd, i could boot it in my lenovo netbook (s10),

however when i plug it to T420s,

i could enter the boot menu, then i chose USB HDD, but it just keeps loading back to the boot menu after dark screen for 15seconds...

[berp]

Yeah, likewise, I've been troubleshooting this for months and i still could not find an answer to this.

SanDisk Extreme 32GB USB 3.0 on my old Lenovo T61 - Can detect in boot menu, can boot into my Live USB LinuxOS.

Same SanDisk Extreme 32GB USB 3.0 on my new Lenovo T420 - Cannot detect in boot menu, cannot boot my Live USB Linux OS.

My desperate guess is that this is an issue specifically affecting the T420 and T420s family of BIOS.

[t3chman]

Ladies and Gentlemen...  I have the solution you have been looking for:

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Go to the BIOS Setup page.

In the BIOS page go to the "Startup." tab.

Press, "Enter, (the, "Boot," option should be hilighted)."

Now... You don't see the USB device listed, huh?

Press, "F9," for, "Setup Defaults."

A dialogue will appear that asks, "Setup Confirmation.  Load default configuration now?" To which you will press enter for, "Yes."

After you do this ALL of the bootable devices should appear.  I went from only seeing two devices to seeing 12 devices.  If your USB jump drive is in, it should display the make/model of the USB device too.  You can then press the +/- keys to move that device to the top of the list.

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Note 1:  I am running BIOS version 1.38.

Note 2: I signed up for this forum just so that I could share this information with you because I couldn't find it anywhere else online. :-)

[userex]

Trying for two hours... USB will not boot.

New 16GB usb drive, made recovery - successful, set to active boot partiion and still will not boot from usb. Bios recognizes it, shows it in boot. I have set it to priority and even turned off main harddisk and still gives me the "boot menu" (same as F12), shows the drive, but will not boot from it.

Never had this much trouble from any other computer. Seems like there are a lot cryptic holes to jump through for Lenovo recovery.

System is T430s

Any help is appreciated.

[Amy_Lenovo · Accepted solution]

BIOS update 1.35 released on 9/25/12 resolved these reports: 

<1.35>
UEFI: 1.35 / ECP: 1.20
- (Fix) Fixed an issue where the computer might hang during boot with some USB
hard disks attached.

It can be downloaded here: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/thinkpad-t42...

[Unstable_T420s]

Wow, Lenovo officially responds with a fix after this thread has been dormant for 1 year, 3 years after the thread was started.

C'mon Lenovo - can't you give some support on some of the more recent threads?

(The T420s will be a legacy (dead) machine, relic of the past, if you take another year+ to answer our new threads)