My mini doesnt want to boot from USB!

[Fking]

Hello

I got a linux one, and im trying to install windows on it.
I made a bootable usb flash drive with vista, which boots perfectly on my other laptop, but causes the mini to freeze on black screen right after i select in the boot menu to boot from the usb drive.
I've tried with usb hdd as well. The same thing.
Tried all possible settings in the bios, doesnt help as well.

I'm running out of options here, so i really hope that someone could give me an idea.
Havent found anyone else having the same problem on the net....huh Is it possible to have defective USB ports or something? (well it reads from them just fine once booted to linux)

If someone have seen or heard of someone having the same problem, please let me know! I'm going crazy here!

[Ollec]

What program did you use to make the bootable USB? If you used PE to USB, I think you have to have a 2GB or less flash drive. I was trying to install Windows XP using a 4GB flash drive and it didn't work (multiple times), but when I used a roommate's 1GB thumb drive, it worked like a charm.

~ Ollec

[MikeF74]

I installed Vista from a bootable 8GB SDHC. I haven't tried booting from a thumb drive yet, but can give it a shot if you point me to a bootable linux distro you're having trouble with.

[Fking]

What program did you use to make the bootable USB? If you used PE to USB, I think you have to have a 2GB or less flash drive. I was trying to install Windows XP using a 4GB flash drive and it didn't work (multiple times), but when I used a roommate's 1GB thumb drive, it worked like a charm.

~ Ollec

Wow that's very interesting because im trying with a 4gb one
for the making of it, i dont use a program, but just format it to NTFS with vista, make it active and copy the boot sectors in CMD command line. It's fast and works under my other laptop, so that method should be ok.

I really hope that the reason is that it doesnt work well with 4gb ones.

Tell me something else, that 4gb drive you used, you could see it and read from it on hte mini, you just cant boot from it?

[Fking]

I installed Vista from a bootable 8GB SDHC. I haven't tried booting from a thumb drive yet, but can give it a shot if you point me to a bootable linux distro you're having trouble with.

hm, you booted from the built in card reader or from an usb card reader?
I didnt see such option in the bios, i know 2133 has it, but 2140 doesnt
how did you do it?

[Ollec]

Wow that's very interesting because im trying with a 4gb one
for the making of it, i dont use a program, but just format it to NTFS with vista, make it active and copy the boot sectors in CMD command line. It's fast and works under my other laptop, so that method should be ok.

I really hope that the reason is that it doesnt work well with 4gb ones.

Tell me something else, that 4gb drive you used, you could see it and read from it on hte mini, you just cant boot from it?

I've been comfortably and successfully using the same exact 4GB USB (it's a Sandisk Micro, btw) for transfering some of my important files over to my Mini 2140. It works just as it should. For some reason, however, I wasn't able to make it bootable. This is consistent with some things I've read -- apparently not all USB flash drives can be made bootable.

Give PEtoUSB a shot (I'm not 100% sure it'll work with vista, but who knows, it couldn't hurt) and use a 2GB or smaller thumb drive.

I wish you luck.

~ Ollec

[MikeF74]

hm, you booted from the built in card reader or from an usb card reader?
I didnt see such option in the bios, i know 2133 has it, but 2140 doesnt
how did you do it?

Using the built-in SD card reader on the 2140 (which has a newer firmware compared to other 2140's). While booting, I have to hit F9 pretty quickly to get the boot options screen. I haven't bothered with trying to rejigger the device boot order in the BIOS since it was a one-time boot from the SD card.

[Inconnu]

I installed windows 7 from a 8gig USB thumb drive. It didn't boot in the left USB slot --- but it did in the right USB slot.

I followed a guide that let me do it all from the command prompt...

[Fking]

I finally managed to do it with 1GB flash, formated FAT32 with HP USB format tool (dont use the windows built one format tool but this one)