Did Windows 10 disable my USB boot option in BIOS?

[tek609]

I’m not even sure where to start?
Twice now, in 2 different computers (boxes), I tried to install linux mint 20.2 from a USB stick. This endeavour has now resulted in the USB BIOS boot option being permanently disabled in both boxes. I can no longer boot from a USB and I can not change it in the BIOS.

First me. I am a windows convert (trying to be) and I have enough computer savvy to be dangerous. My method of operandi is stay out of the BIOS. All I did was change the boot options that were available, from SSD to USB as the primary, and SSD now secondary. I know you don’t know who I am, but I swear that’s all I did.

Ok the computer stats are down below, but here is what happened. I tried to install windows 10 on the AMD box a year ago and it would not. Phone call to Microsoft and they said that my AMD box was too old and I would need to upgrade to something new. (Mesh Network?). So I built the windows box below, loaded 10 on it and put away the AMD box. About a year later I decided to try linux on the AMD box. ( yes it’s true, I don’t trust MS any more).

Booted the AMD box last July 2021 with linux mint 20.2 off the USB port, then hard installed to the SSD and never looked back. Mint has been working great on that box. The AMD box continued to have the USB boot option in the BIOS and has been working great. Up until this morning, when I tried to format the windows box 120 GB SSD. More on this in a minute.

Enter the MS box. After I tested the AMD/Linux OS for a couple months I decided time to dump MS completely. So I set the windows 10 boot manager to USB first option, and tried to boot off the USB mint ISO 20.2 stick. 30 mins later and a blank screen, I rebooted and entered the BIOS. The USB boot option is “Disabled” and I can not change it to enabled.

OK I am not giving up yet! I took out the SSD from the MS box, and added it to the AMD box in SATA port 2, and formatted it. Shut down and removed the AMD SSD that has the working Mint OS I originally installed. That left only the newly formatted SSD with no OS at all. I then booted off the USB containing Mint. Hard installed mint to the SSD and tested it, works fine. I shut down, Swapped out SSD and reinstalled the new SSD I just put linux on back into the MS box.

Can you imagine my surprise when Windows 10 fired up?? I was not expecting that at all.

So I pulled out the SSD from the MS box, reinstalled in the AMD box and went to inspect it (Disk Manager). Yep it says it’s a linux only partition ext4 and OS. What the ? Lets try it again. Formatted and went to boot off the USB and nothing. Into the AMD BIOS I went. There is now NO USB option there either.

WHAT did I do?

A few mins of denial, and I started inspecting the MS box. God da** it...there it was. M.2 is completely new to me and not on my cognizant list yet (it is now) so I completely missed it. MS mystery OS solved, but what happened to the USB boot option on BOTH boxes? I have no idea what to do now as I can not boot any box off of USB now?

So would one of you gurus like to help me out and take a stab at getting back my USB boot options? Please?

Windows box:
MB Gigabyte B560M DS3H LG 1200 2019 Manufacture date
CPU Intel i5
RAM 16 GB DDR 4 ram 3200
HD 500 GB M.2 and a separate Intel 250 series 120 GB SSD (SATA 1)
Graphics On board (No Card)
OS Windows 10

AMD Box:
MB ASRock 970 Extreme
CPU AMD3, 6 core
RAM 32 GB DDR3
HD Western Digital 250 GB SSD (SATA 1)
Graphics GT610 Nvidia Galaxy Gforce 1GB DDR3 64bit Video card
OS Linux Mint 20.2

[decrepit]

I've no idea really, but have you disabled, secure boot and fast boot?

[missmoondog]

I've no idea really, but have you disabled, secure boot and fast boot?

have relatively the same issue on a new laptop here. are those the only 2 things that need to be disabled for linux to be installed on new machines?

[tek609]

Yep, I forgot to mention that. Secure boot and fast boot on the AMD box running mint has never had Secure boot enabled, then or now. On the windows box says disabled as well.
I did add CD/DVD burner software to the linux box and now it shows up as a bootable option in the UEFI.
So I'm trying to create a bootable DVD...ughh

[rickNS]

So I'm trying to create a bootable DVD...ughh

When burning .iso to DVD use slow(est) speed.

As to your title question, I doubt it very much.
Can you show a picture of the BIOS screen where USB boot option is disabled ?

[ralplpcr]

A wild guess out of left field here....

Do you have some setting in your BIOS that allows you choose between UEFI mode & BIOS mode when booting? This often allows you to set multiple options, such as:

• UEFI only
• Legacy Only
• UEFI First
• Legacy First

The labels may be different in your motherboard's BIOS, but they usually permit something along these lines. I typically go with Legacy First, but unless you really have a reason I would recommend AVOIDING the "only" modes - - they're too restrictive.
My suspicion is that you *may* have formatted your USB in "BIOS mode", and it's not being recognized as a bootable device when you're running in a UEFI bootup.

Once you'd confirmed that you can boot both UEFI and Legacy (or BIOS mode), you'll also want to check to make sure that your "Boot Menu" is not disabled. This will allow you to press a key when you first turn on the computer (referred to as POST) so you can select your boot device. On the Asrock you'd press F11, on the Gigabyte it's F12. The USB must be inserted in the system when you press the power button.

If you have both UEFI and Legacy modes enabled, you'll likely see a list of options - - I'm not familiar with the particular screens of those motherboards, but *generally* most will show UEFI bootable devices *and* Legacy bootable devices. You can then try booting your USB in Legacy mode.

[tek609]

ralplpcr
I am sorry for taking so long, my apologies. I spent over an hour typing a response to your questions and also telling you some other things I tried and ideas I had and... I accidently closed the F*&^%$ browser and LOST it all. I am so pissed right now, and I have got to deal with family issues right now. I will post tomorrow.
thanks

[tek609]

Do you have some setting in your BIOS that allows you choose between UEFI mode & BIOS mode when booting? This often allows you to set multiple options, such as:

UEFI only
Legacy Only
UEFI First
Legacy First

ralplpcr, thanks for your patients.
Yes and No.
The linux box (ASRock mb) has always had 3 boot options, from day 1. they were "USB", "UEFI", and "HD". Now they are: "UEFI ONLY", "HD", and "Disabled". Disabled is greyed out. and will not change.

On the MicroSoft box (Gigabyte mb), I can not remember what the original options were, but now they are "HD" and "Disabled". Disabled is greyed out and will not change.

I plugged an external CD/DVD burner/player into the linux board and the "UEFI ONLY" acknowledged it. So I burned a ISO to DVD. I could not open it however. I still tried to boot from it, and it does not work. Tried to read it and drive is still recognized, but no media is on the ISO dvd. CD's and movie DVD's play fine.

My suspicion is that you *may* have formatted your USB in "BIOS mode", and it's not being recognized as a bootable device when you're running in a UEFI bootup.

I made that on the ms box under win 10 using Rufus, and installed it on the linux box end of June 2021. No issues with either linux or the ASRock BIOS after initial install. I've have been into the linux box BIOS a couple times after I installed linux to get the DVD/CD player installed. It still had the original 3 boot options ("USB"). The "USB" option became "Disabled" after I started all the swapping (original post).

I never used the linux bootable stick again until 12 Oct 2021 in the ms box. That's when I started swapping back and forth, and ran into all these issues.

Once you'd confirmed that you can boot both UEFI and Legacy (or BIOS mode), you'll also want to check to make sure that your "Boot Menu" is not disabled. This will allow you to press a key when you first turn on the computer (referred to as POST) so you can select your boot device.

I can enter the BIOS on both mb's, but the USB options are "Disabled" and will not change.

So I had a thought that since the linux/ASRock mb BIOS recognized the DVD/CD burner, it was plugged into the rear 3.0 USB port, lets try that port instaed of the front case ports, with the linux bootable thumb drive. Yep, it was slow, but it ran linux off the thumb drive. It would NOT let me hard install to the SSD though. It only operated off the USB stick. When I would click the install icon, an error msg would flash for a few seconds, then disappear.

I remember downloading a free mp3 recording software (Coke) in march of 2021, and started having windows issues after that. Those win 10 issues were just more reasons to leave windows and go to linux, but I ran Tron first for win 10 in April and all was well until I used the Coke software to record a webinar. Then issues started resurfacing. These were minor issues, more stability issues than anything else, and happened weeks after so I never correlated between downloaded software and the issues. I assumed they were ms driven.

So since the mb BIOS in the linux box didn't change until after swapping the drive back and forth on the ms box (original post), do you think I picked up a virus?
If so, Tron has a root killer scrub in it. I know the windows side of Tron won't help linux, but would that root killer work anyway since it is designed for virus removal in the BIOS?
Thanks for your help. I know we are suffering from the covid mandates and your time is valuable.

[ralplpcr]

I made that on the ms box under win 10 using Rufus, and installed it on the linux box end of June 2021. No issues with either linux or the ASRock BIOS after initial install. I've have been into the linux box BIOS a couple times after I installed linux to get the DVD/CD player installed. It still had the original 3 boot options ("USB"). The "USB" option became "Disabled" after I started all the swapping (original post).

If I understand correctly, you're saying that the USB stick *did* work, and allowed you to both boot & install Linux Mint from it back in June? If that's the case, then my guess about legacy mode vs UEFI mode is incorrect. It would appear that both motherboards have the same settings, and it shouldn't be an issue.

It *does* sounds as though you've managed to get some corruption somewhere in your BIOS or UEFI, however. I don't know whether this is from a virus, or from you inadvertently changing some settings.

Since I don't own either of those motherboards to be able to see any of their settings, the only recommendation I can make is to reset the BIOS to factory settings. This *should* correct any weird setting changes that were made, and allow the "USB Boot" option to become visible.

WARNING! Any & all custom settings that you made in the BIOS or UEFI will be lost
by resetting the BIOS!
If you changed the booting mode (legacy to UEFI or vice-versa) before installing your OS, you must manually change it back to the same setting - - otherwise your OS will not boot properly. The boot mode must match what your OS expects - - for both Linux and Windows.

This procedure will also not work if you did somehow get an actual corruption within the BIOS. Those are rare, and usually the reset will solve your issue... but it is possible.

You'll have to look on ASRock & Gigabyte's sites for your specific motherboard to determine how to perform a factory reset. Normally, it is done by going into the BIOS (F11 / F12 on the ASRock & Gigabyte respectively), and then pressing F9.... but the procedure may vary on your hardware.

[tek609]

If I understand correctly, you're saying that the USB stick *did* work, and allowed you to both boot & install Linux Mint from it back in June? I

Yes, I made it back in June off the ms box, and then used it to install linux on the AMD3/ASRock box. Did not use it again until oct when I tried to instal linux on the Gigabyte box (win 10).
The only thing I ever did in either BIOS was reorder the boot options. i.e. SSD (HD's) were the default first boot option, I reassigned that to #2, and put the "USB" option to #1. That's it, that is all I ever did in either the BIOS.

I am working out of town this weekend, so I won't be able to try and reset the BIOS till Mon/Tue. I will pm when I attempt/accomplish that
Thanks