ASUS M4A78 PRO

[bburns]

My old motherboard stopped reading the USB thumb drive this week (I tried all ports and all the USB headers, so I guess the USB controller died). So I re-purposed an ASUS M4A78 Pro motherboard that I already had. I upgraded the BIOS to the latest version. Now getting this board to boot from USB drive ia a PITA!! Since it appears on the hardware list, I assume someone has figured this out. The problem is that I have to press the F8 key at boot BIOS flash screen in order to get a boot menu that I can select the Unraid USB drive, thus requiring keyboard and monitor and me being physically present to boot the box.

 

Here is what I have tried:

• Upgrade BIOS to latest from ASUS
  
• Disable Floppy Controller (no big deal, but I could not get USB to boot at all unless I did this)
  
• Made "Removable Device" first in BIOS boot priority list
  
• Removed all other possibilities from boot priority list
  

 

Any ideas on what else to try?

 

Thanks,

b2

[sam_roberts30]

I had a similar issue with one of my asus boards. In the end up having to remake the Rebootable from my backup. Not sure why but it might be worth a try

[bburns]

If you mean making a new USB stick, I have tried a couple. From reading, some other forums this seems to be a problem with M4A78 PRO. I was just hoping that some other Unraid User who had a M4A78 Pro had found a workaround.

[Shibbysnacks]

I made my UNRAID set everything up and realized this board wouldn't reboot. To not loose your work, go to the MAIN tab, select "flash" under Boot Device and click "FLASH BACKUP". This will create a zip file of your flash contents. For the following fix, this is what you copy back to your flash drive. 

 

Found the solution from Sypower: 

 

I used a linux mint iso but just pick one with rufus. When you copy the UNRAID files back to the flash disk windows asked if I wanted to overwrite duplicate files, the answer to this is absolutely NOT. Otherwise the fix does not work. 

 

Also, my flash is set to "Permit UEFI boot mode" (my efi folder is "EFI" without the minus sign) although I don't think this BIOS has UEFI (I might be wrong) but this worked. 

 

With the latest BIOS version 1701 08/16/2010 v2.61:

Advanced tab

     USB Configuration:

        USB Support: Enabled

        Legacy USB Support: Enabled

        USB 2.0 Controller: Enabled

        USB 2.0 Controller Mode: HiSpeed

        BIOS EHCI Hand-off: Enabled

        USB Mass Storage Device Configuration:

            your flash should be listed here

            Emulation Type: Forced FDD

Boot tab

     Boot Device Priority:

        1st Boot Device: select your usb flash drive

        Disable the others

     Boot Settings Configuration:

        Quick Boot: Disabled

        Full Screen Logo: Disabled

        AddOn ROM Display Mode: Keep Current

        Wait for F1 if error: Disabled

Tools tab

     Express Gate is disabled

 

Good luck and happy computing from Shibbysnacks