What might cause a bootable USB to trigger a not a bootable device error?

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Having created a bootable USB and checked that the bootable flag is set it nevertheless triggers a "not a bootable device" error on everything I try it on. What might cause this to happen?

The USB is formatted with MBR and a partition set to FAT32 (LBA) (0x0c) it's total capacity is 4.1 Gb (all used). Bootable flag is set.

Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt

Posted 2014-10-11T12:53:06.817

Reputation: 165

1Could the computer you are trying to boot have its BIOS only configured for UEFI devices without support for legacy boot devices (i.e. MBR). – None – 2014-10-11T12:55:06.540

1Look for "Secure boot" - as tchester suggests. If it's on then this might be the cause. However I fear that because you are getting a "not a bootable device" that it's already trying to read the device so secure boot might already be off... The method you made the disk might be incorrect... – Kinnectus – 2014-10-11T13:02:47.863

I wondered about secure boot but I have gotten past that before on the box I just built and also got the same error with my laptop. Fairly sure that secure boot is disabled on one or both devices. – Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt – 2014-10-11T13:13:03.900

Would formatting with a GUID Partition Table make any difference? – Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt – 2014-10-11T13:14:24.000

Answers

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The solution that worked for me was as follows.

  1. Remove all partitions from pendrive.
  2. Reformat MBR.
  3. Add new FAT32 MBR
  4. Move USB drive to port not part of the hub
  5. Have Unetbootin make a CentOS 32 bit USB bootable...
  6. Set the bootable flag
  7. Live with setting up the PC with half the CPU bandwidth wasted
  8. Be slightly irritated that Ubuntu would not boot

What the real problem is I have no idea.

Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt

Posted 2014-10-11T12:53:06.817

Reputation: 165

Asked: 2014-10-11T12:53:06.817

Viewed: 93 times

Active: 2014-10-12T17:25:25.210