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224 Posts
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121481
Multiple XPS 15z won't boot from USB Flash drives
I'm an IT tech and was prepping some XPS 15z notebooks. Part of my procedure is to boot from a bootable USB flash drive that has GHOST and clone images to the drives. Done it a million times (on other systems).
Yesterday, I'm attempting to boot from my bootable USB and I get "Operating System not found" at boot. Shocked, I thought my GHOST boot drive was corrupt.
I pull out my own XPS 15z and the GHOST drive boots fine, even after multiple tries.
I put it back in the new 15z and same thing, "Operating System not found". I also have a bunch of bootable Windows 7 installation USB Flash drives. I pop in one of those into the new 15z, and it won't boot either. I try a different USB 3.0 port, and get the same result. Lastly, I try the USB/eSATA port, and none of my USB keys show up at all (during boot or in the BIOS boot order).
Figuring the 15z was defective, I tried the 2nd 15z I was prepping. SAME THING. Third 15z...SAME.
What's odd is my own 15z works just fine. I tried updating the BIOS in the 15z's to the same as mine (A06) as they were at A05. No difference.
CAN ANYONE BOOT FROM A USB FLASH DRIVE SUCCESSFULLY?
This is completely bizarre. First, neither of the USB 3.0 ports will boot, and second, the combo USB/eSATA port will not detect the presence of a USB drive at boot.
To make matters worse, the USB ports seem to work fine in Windows 7. They are detected, and with a Windows 7 installation USB Flash drive, I can start a Windows 7 installation, so that tells me the ports work.
Ideas???
andrejsporn
2 Posts
1
November 8th, 2011 06:00
Hi,
I had the same problem, after I updated bios to last version (I think A06) I was able to boot from USB from combine port (eSata/USB).
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
November 9th, 2011 05:00
Well, on a 15z I just tried that on, it DID WORK! Thank you.
I did try updating to A06 previous, but I must have tried booting from the USB 3.0 port. Apparently, then, the USB 3.0 ports are not bootable?
I'll try the A06/Combo port boot on a couple other 15z's I have for clients, and see if it also works and will report back for conclusion.
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
November 9th, 2011 05:00
I forgot to mention one downside to this solution...I cannot clone a hard drive that is installed IN the 15z to an external eSATA-connected drive! I use a bootable GHOST thumb drive to start the clone. If my boot USB thumb drive is in the eSATA combo port, I have no where to connect my destination hard drive!! Arrrgghh!
I heard about the possibility of booting from a bootable SD card. Anyone tried that?
Neilsdesperandu
1 Message
0
June 13th, 2012 00:00
My own XPS 15z was booting fine with a usb key in any of the ports (I usually park my wireless mouse dongle in the eSata) until a few weeks ago. Then it just stopped booting from usb. Its not a problem with the usb drives - they still work fine on my old Inspiron. What I have noticed is that the access LEDs on the drives do not flash during the attempted boot. This suggests that the 15z is failing to access the USB ports for some reason. Driver problem?
DebianUser
1 Message
0
July 17th, 2012 01:00
With BIOS version A10, booting from USB works on all three ports until the machine is hibernated, then it doesn't work at all (reproduced on multiple machines with both Windows and Linux).
Un-hibernating and shutting down completely re-enables boot from USB again. Changing the motherboard while hibernated also works around the issue (once).
Clearly this is a bug in the BIOS.
tmax11
4 Posts
0
June 28th, 2014 08:00
My XPS 15Z used to boot from USB without problems until recently. Now the hard disc failed.
Now, while I'm waiting to be replaced within warranty (lucky me, still one month of valid warranty), the laptop refuses to boot from any of the 3 USB ports, with 3 different sticks (Ubuntu, WinPE and Win8).
BIOS ver. is A06.
Frustrating!
What could be the reason and is there any workaround? (reset cmos, buy another one etc. I can't update bios to A10 if it's not booting).
Thank you.
tmax11
4 Posts
0
June 28th, 2014 15:00
Problem solved.
Disconnected the cmos battery for 30 seconds (easy task, there is a tutorial on youtube on how to replace it). It works like charm.
Errata: BIOS ver. is A12.
P.S. Funny, the message displayed before was "Operation system not found" (sic!)
Guess who's writing the software for dell (bios, drivers, tools et all) :emotion-4: