Hey guys. I'm totally new to this, but I've been doing as much reading as I possibly can prior to posting in case I missed something simple. I can't get past the black screen with the cursor when trying to boot form the USB.

Hardware:

Asus sabertooth x79 mobo w/ 3930k v1 chip running 4701 bios version (it's the latest non-beta version according to the asus website)

kingston traveler se9 16gb flash drive, formatted fat32 with MBR

 

I've tried all sorts of options on the bios including turning secure boot on/off, UEFI and legacy booting, disabled all other bootables, basically everything the troubleshooting guides recommend and it still just won't load. Am I missing something here?

 

I'm using a mac running OS X to create the USB and I've tried it using the usb creator program as well as just doing it the legacy way where you copy the files and run the "make bootable" file.

 

Please help! I didn't think it would be this tough to get it up and running!!

 

EDIT:

So I was able to get things working by:

1. Going back to the base bios settings and running my XMP profile that came with my DDR3 mem sticks so I can actually run them at 1833mhz,

2. left secure boot ON

3. made sure the UEFI Kingston had boot priority

4. Disabled all other bootables except bootable CD override

5. I found out that my CPU fans from noctua run at a lower RPM than the "alarm" state for the bios which threw it into an error that isn't really an error. I set the bios to NOT require me to press F1 to enter setup to "fix" this "error" and it allowed the OS to boot straight through from a cold start with no help from me.

SUCCESS!

Edited January 20, 20188 yr by TheWooginator
Solved problem

Did you set your BIOS up to specify that you wanted it to boot from the USB drive?  (You might think this is a stupid question but with all your detail that item is not listed as having been done.)  

 

If that does not work, see if you can boot it in your MAC.  It won't do any writing to the disks installed in the MAC UNLESS you tell it to!) 

Edited January 19, 20188 yr by Frank1940

3 hours ago, TheWooginator said:

I can't get past the black screen with the cursor when trying to boot form the USB.

This means the boot order is incorrect or the flash isn't bootable.

So, I managed to get it working last night after some trial and error. I had changed the boot order and disabled other drives from  being bootable media in the bios initially, but that didn't seem to work so I went back to all default settings in the bios, enabled the XMP profile, re-enabled secure boot, but switched it to "other OS". It won't directly boot the flash drive as UEFI, but once I get into bios, I can select "UEFI Kingston etc etc" and it will boot up successfully. I've been messing with the array setup, building the parity drive and installing apps/docker containers at this point. I'm still going to have to go back in and mess with the bios a bit more as I would very much like the system to boot directly in with UEFI without forcing me into setup mode to select it. Seems strange as I have that selected as first in the boot priority order, but it won't do it unless I manually select it in the bios. I'll work on it and report back! Progress!!

If your new BIOS settings didn't solve the problem, you could edit the topic title in your first post to indicate more what your problem now is.  Be sure to include the MB info as there may be someone who is using that MB and has already solved the problem.  (The more targeted the Topic Title, the more likely folks who know about the in-and-outs are to respond.)

 

EDIT:  with the last BIOS update 3-1/2 years ago, I would be likely to continue to use the legacy bootup.  LimeTech only added it because there are a few new MB that won't boot using legacy, only UEFI.

Edited January 19, 20188 yr by Frank1940

Edited original post. Thanks for the help guys! Onward to more struggles

10 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

EDIT:  with the last BIOS update 3-1/2 years ago, I would be likely to continue to use the legacy bootup.  LimeTech only added it because there are a few new MB that won't boot using legacy, only UEFI.

 

I second that. Older implementations of UEFI are not without their issues, usually legacy mode works better.