UNSOLVED
Can't boot from USB. (Partially Solved)
I have a new XPS 13 (L322x) with the 1080p screen. It originally came with Win 8 but I installed Ubuntu 13.04 on it. When I first installed Ubuntu, I tried to boot directly from USB to do a clean install but I couldn't get it to work (I'll explain why below) so I gave up and found another solution. I was able to use the Win 8 bootloader (hold shift while restarting Win 8) to boot from USB and install Ubuntu. Now, if you've read any of my other posts, you know I've had some problems with this installation. So I decided to just do a fresh install of 13.04 beta 2. I created a boot disk on a USB flash drive using Ubuntu's Startup Disk Creator and tried yet again to boot from it. Unfortunately, it still won't work. Here is what I tried.
1. When I press F12 during boot, there are two UEFI boot options: ubuntu, and Windows Bootloader. They both take me to the ubuntu bootloader and let me boot into ubuntu (There isn't actually a Windows installation on my computer since I did a clean install so I don't know why the Windows option is even there).
2. Used F12 again and entered Setup. Added an new UEFI boot option for the USB drive. The USB device was recognized by the BIOS, so I was able to add the boot option using 'USB' as the name and '/efi/boot/bootx64.efi' as the file location (I also checked the flash drive to make sure this was indeed the file location).
So, at this point, I pressed F12 again at boot and selected the newly created USB option. Unfortunately, it refused to recognize the USB device and just took me to the Ubuntu bootloader (on the internal drive). I tried both USB ports with the same result.
3. I entered Setup again and put the computer in "Legacy" mode. Unfortunately, when I tried to boot from USB in legacy mode I got a black screen with the following error message "No Operation System Found" (Operation instead of Operating). I tried both USB ports with the same result.
At this point, since I no longer have Win 8 on my computer and therefore can't use the Win 8 bootloader, I am completely stuck. I literally have NO way to install a new OS on my computer. I am extremely frustrated by this. Please let me know if you have any ideas.
BTW... I'm not the only one having this issue:
well i just bought a new dell i7 inspiron 3000 series machine and had to install windows version on it by booting from USB, there was no option in the uefi , so i added a new option by inserting usb in the slot and then browsing to the efi/boot/bootx64.efi , it again asked for the file name , i typed complete path " efi/boot/bootx64.efi " again ...this created a new entry to boot , and the USB stick booted and windows setup started from the usb ....
DELL-Jared D
2 Intern
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350 Posts
5737
0
Posted January 7th, 2016 14:00
I found that the 9350 only lets you efi boot from USB 3 rated sticks. I've booted the 9350 from many USB 2.0 flash drives.
My experience with the 9350 (bios v. 1.4.10) that it has been inconsistent booting from USB 2.0 flash drives. I have a Sandisk 16GB that's formatted in FAT-32 and for some reason I've only had it show up twice in many, many reboots. Going to try a USB 3 thumbdrive.
It appears that the image for a 9360 is not bootable. I tried creating a stick with both Startup Disk Creator and dd using Ubuntu 16.04. This stick will not boot on my XPS13 9360. It will also not boot in Virtualbox. A vanilla Ubuntu 16.04 desktop image boots fine on the 9360 using the same stick.
Image: dell-bto-xenial-dino2-mlk-A00-iso-20161021-0.iso
MRC01
80 Posts
5737
1
Posted June 16th, 2015 08:00
I had to boot my XPS-13 9343 from USB stick to install BIOS A04 and to re-partition the disk (boot to GpartEd image to shrink swap to gain storage space). It was simple. Created the bootable USB using unetbootin. Then booted to BIOS, put it in legacy boot mode, move USB to the top of the boot order list. Insert USB stick and let it boot.
Then when done, boot to BIOS, set it back to normal (switch back to EFI and let it boot to the SSD).