Question Cannot boot to the Boot Device Menu ?

[beauknowsdiddly]

Hey everyone,
I have an old Asus M578LM mobo that I can not get to load into the boot menu. I know it's F8. but it just keeps booting to Windows. If I press delete I can boot into the bios. I'm trying to boot from a USB drive which I can see under the hard drives in the BIOS. I can make that the priority but it won't boot to the correct partition on that drive. I HAVE to get into the boot menu to change the partition. How on earth can I get the boot menu to come up???? I tried holding escape while hitting power, that doesn't work either.

 

[Lutfij]

See if this reddit post helps. Ofc, I'm assuming that the USB you're trying to boot off of is actually bootable and that your BIOS is on the latest version.'

If not, you might want to elaborate which partition you're trying to boot off of.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

See if this reddit post helps. Ofc, I'm assuming that the USB you're trying to boot off of is actually bootable and that your BIOS is on the latest version.'

If not, you might want to elaborate which partition you're trying to boot off of.

I'll check it out thank you! I've been attempting to update my BIOS but I can't seem to boot to the EZ flash option either and I'm not finding an option in bios to update it from there.

 

[BFG-9000]

As you'd expect from something so old, the USB drive must be pretty small to be recognized, try 32GB or less and FAT32 (FAT16 is supported up to 2GB)

Only one partition on any disk can be the active one and you don't use any boot menu to change it, but some disk partitioning utility. If it's just a BIOS file on an otherwise empty drive then that's not supposed to be bootable.

The built-in EZ Flash 2 utility is outside of the BIOS and accessed with ALT-F2 during POST instead of the DEL you would use to enter the BIOS. There's supposed to be a message at the bottom of the screen to indicate this, but modern monitors may not auto-resize quickly enough to see it.

I know it's F8. but it just keeps booting to Windows.

In their infinite wisdom Microsoft have decided Windows never breaks so have disabled the F8 boot menu.
To restore the F8 functionality of previous versions of Windows,
Open an administrator Command Prompt and enter:
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
You will receive the message "The operation completed successfully"
That should make getting to the startup menu much easier in the future, but it still won't let you boot from a non-active partition

 

[SkyNetRising]

I can make that the priority but it won't boot to the correct partition on that drive. I HAVE to get into the boot menu to change the partition. How on earth can I get the boot menu to come up????

You can boot only from Primary Active partition on MBR disk and
only from EFI system partition on GPT disk.
No BIOS options will allow you booting from any other partition.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

As you'd expect from something so old, the USB drive must be pretty small to be recognized, try 32GB or less and FAT32 (FAT16 is supported up to 2GB)

Only one partition on any disk can be the active one and you don't use any boot menu to change it, but some disk partitioning utility. If it's just a BIOS file on an otherwise empty drive then that's not supposed to be bootable.

The built-in EZ Flash 2 utility is outside of the BIOS and accessed with ALT-F2 during POST instead of the DEL you would use to enter the BIOS. There's supposed to be a message at the bottom of the screen to indicate this, but modern monitors may not auto-resize quickly enough to see it.


In their infinite wisdom Microsoft have decided Windows never breaks so have disabled the F8 boot menu.
To restore the F8 functionality of previous versions of Windows,
Open an administrator Command Prompt and enter:
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
You will receive the message "The operation completed successfully"
That should make getting to the startup menu much easier in the future, but it still won't let you boot from a non-active partition

Thank you BFG! I do see the menu at the bottom and it does say alt+f2 for ez flash 2 but that doesn't open either. However, I can get to the ez flash 2 option from the tools menu in the bios. But no matter which update I download and put on my flash drive when I attempt to run if from ez flash 2 it says "no update module found in file"

I also copied and pasted the command bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy and it said it completed successfully, but still f8 does not bring up the boot menu 🙁

The USB drive I'm booting from is an OS that I use for work, which has a few partitions and for whatever reason it's always booted to the wrong partition. I just have to change it in the boot menu which I have been doing for probably a year now on my other PC. I just have to use this older PC for a bit. I somehow HAVE to get that boot menu to load.

 

[BFG-9000]

Assuming you have actually unzipped the BIOS download to the .ROM file inside, it is entirely possible you have downloaded the wrong BIOS because there are many models of M5A78L-M.

That actually doesn't sound like the Windows boot menu, where you hit F8 right before Windows starts to load. It sounds like a bootloader/boot manager. See, to multiboot in UEFI, each OS can store its own boot files in the EFI system partition so technically they are all booting from the same boot partition but just a different one for each becomes the C:\. Your old PC doesn't have UEFI as 760G chipset is just too old, so no BIOS update will give that to you. UEFI did finally show up on the last AM3+ boards with the 900 series chipsets.

I will just say that bootloaders usually have a .cfg or .ini file that you can edit to change the default OS to boot from.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Assuming you have actually unzipped the BIOS download to the .ROM file inside, it is entirely possible you have downloaded the wrong BIOS because there are many models of M5A78L-M.

That actually doesn't sound like the Windows boot menu, where you hit F8 right before Windows starts to load. It sounds like a bootloader/boot manager. See, to multiboot in UEFI, each OS can store its own boot files in the EFI system partition so technically they are all booting from the same boot partition but just a different one for each becomes the C:\. Your old PC doesn't have UEFI as 760G chipset is just too old, so no BIOS update will give that to you. UEFI did finally show up on the last AM3+ boards with the 900 series chipsets.

I will just say that bootloaders usually have a .cfg or .ini file that you can edit to change the default OS to boot from.

Okay so when I try to load to the USB drive, (it's called an IGEL btw) it's loading to the wrong partition. I just get this flashing prompt that says Grub. On my other PC all I do is hit f11 and the boot menu comes up and I can choose the correct partition on that USB drive. This PC isn't giving me that option. I figured out how to bring up the boot manager, using the command, "bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes" So now the boot manager comes up but the only option there is Windows. I don't see the USB drive at all there. When I go into bios I can change the HDD to USB, but then the F8 doesn't work still. On my other PC, in the BIOS I can see the USB drive with all it's partitions but in the Bios on this one I can only see the name of it not all the separate partitions.

Edit, you were right. I must've been downloading the wrong version. When I entered the correct model there are no updates past the one I have ver 0502.

As far as updating the Bios goes, I am loading the .ROM file so maybe you're right and I'm downloading the wrong version. Mine is M5A78L-M PLUS USB3. I'll double check that. Not that it will do much good if I have to have UEFI to see the different partitions on that USB drive. I just may not be able to work with this PC.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Okay so when I try to load to the USB drive, (it's called an IGEL btw) it's loading to the wrong partition. I just get this flashing prompt that says Grub. On my other PC all I do is hit f11 and the boot menu comes up and I can choose the correct partition on that USB drive. This PC isn't giving me that option.
Mine is M5A78L-M PLUS USB3.

Your USB drive is probably prepared for UEFI boot.
M5A78L-M PLUS USB3 doesn't support UEFI.
You will not be able to boot from UEFI boot source.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Your USB drive is probably prepared for UEFI boot.
M5A78L-M PLUS USB3 doesn't support UEFI.
You will not be able to boot from UEFI boot source.

Hey Sky, thanks. You're probably right 🙁 What's confusing though is that it is booting into it. That's how I'm getting that Grub message. I believe it would boot up if the thing was configured to boot to the correct partition. Oh well sucks to be me.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Here's the boot menu Boot Device Menu for the USB drive on my other PC. This is what it SHOULD look like. But that menu does not come up at all.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/18xj...ey=lfkk6qpaocdfbxwgdk8e32fga&st=j3b7byrn&dl=0

 

[BFG-9000]

Yes, Windows comes with a boot manager which is cleverly named "bootmgr" (settings are normally changed under System Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery rather than editing boot.ini like cavemen did in the olden days) but that is only invoked after it's already booting from the hard disk, when it's too late to boot from any USB.

Grub is the standard linux boot manager and you have it on your USB stick so it's only invoked once the USB starts loading. Its configuration file is named grub.cfg and in Bash-like syntax. You can change the GRUB_DEFAULT key to automatically boot to whichever kernel release is in its list and on the USB without having to select it from the menu.

However that image you posted is not any boot manager. It's the Asrock BIOS detecting that you have installed a new bootable device since it was last powered on, and asking you which device you would like to boot from. It would give you the same menu if you installed another internal disk, which already had an active and bootable partition on it.