P4S533-E USB boot (from flash drive)

[Orionn]

I would like to know if this motherboard supports booting from a USB
flash drive (example: Live USB pendrive with Linux). The following
link:
http://support.asus.com/faq/asus-faq.aspx?type=6&no=E71A8B99-68DD-F1AD-8047-3A1E125F6090&model=P4S533-E&SLanguage=en-us

says no, but in this thread:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20080827060434875&board_id=1&model=P4S533-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

the poster seems to have been able to do a BIOS update from USB.

I have tried to configure the BIOS to boot from "USB FDD" and "USB
ZIP" but I am unable to boot. With a laptop with a more recent BIOS I
am able to boot from the same USB flash drive.

Finally, I am wondering if the latest BIOS update:
Beta Version 1008.009
2004/03/25 update

would allow me to boot from a USB flash drive or USB HDD.

looking for your feedback.

[Anssi Saari]

Orionn <ori...@mailinator.com> writes:

> I would like to know if this motherboard supports booting from a USB
> flash drive (example: Live USB pendrive with Linux).

I really have no idea about your motherboard, but USB booting was hard
sometimes with older hardware. I had this Aopen motherboard which I
just couldn't get to boot from USB. I could even access USB sticks if
I booted DOS from CD or HD, which showed that the BIOS had working USB
support, but I just couldn't create a bootable USB stick. Well, I went
through the various options available with Syslinux, no other tool.

Then someone mentioned the Quantian USB booting howto at
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/howto_usbboot.html, Quantian is
a science-oriented Linux distribution. Very old now, hasn't been
updated since 2006.

Anyways, that Howto mentions a tool called makebootfat and that made
all the difference, I could then boot my machine without problems from
various memory sticks without problems. Maybe it works for you. There
at least used to be a Windows version of the available tool as well,
in case you need it.