USB prevents BIOS from loading?

Jamarlie · March 9, 2022

So I have a rather old ASUS Sabertooth Mark S MoBo, and I have a USB plugged in which I use as a quick and dirty way to transfer files between my systems (I dual boot Manjaro and Win10).
Now this USB has mostly some text files on it, no .iso or executable files, but it makes my motherboard act... weirdly.
Whenever it is plugged in, it gets stuck on the boot screen. And I don't mean it's trying to boot the USB which gives you a black screen and a cursor because it has no bootable OS on it, I mean it boots up, shows you the splash screen of the BIOS and then freezes in said post screen. You can't access the BIOS menu anymore like it says on screen which is how I know it is frozen, it just stays like this until you power it off. I've successfully identified the USB as the culprit, no matter where I plug it in it doesn't move past the splash screen on startup. If I unplug it, I can boot into GRUB just fine.
What could be a way to fix that? I'm pretty well versed with tech and I have absolutely no bloody idea what that is, never even heard or read of that anywhere. Like if it would just try to post the USB I could at least tell it not to in the BIOS boot options, but if the BIOS itself doesn't work anymore with it plugged in, like whaddaya do then?? Thankful for any help!

D1D01 · March 9, 2022

I use InitDisk for any issues with dead flash drives or if I want to positively remove any Boot code from the drive. use as described without any switches.

https://www.grc.com/initdisk.htm

Just wondered - Does the same happen with any USB Drive?

Jamarlie · March 9, 2022

5 minutes ago, D1D01 said:

I use InitDisk for any issues with dead flash drives or if I want to positively remove any Boot code from the drive. use as described without any switches.

https://www.grc.com/initdisk.htm

Just wondered - Does the same happen with any USB Drive?

Nope, just with this one USB.
I'll use initdisk to see if there's any bootcode but over all this shouldn't really prevent the BIOS itself from booting, should it?
And I also never had any .iso or anything installed on the drive that could remotely be a "boot code".
It's also not like the flash drive is dead, it's brand new and if I plug it in once the system is posted it works just fine.

Allan B · March 9, 2022

An ISO is not "boot code", you have to extract a bootable ISO to the drive a special way for it to be bootable. You wouldn't see the boot files typically they are hidden. Your best bet is to format the usb and put the flles you want back on it (don't select all file and copy). See if that helps, or just don't have it plugged in while booting

Jamarlie · March 9, 2022

43 minutes ago, Allan B said:

An ISO is not "boot code", you have to extract a bootable ISO to the drive a special way for it to be bootable. You wouldn't see the boot files typically they are hidden. Your best bet is to format the usb and put the flles you want back on it (don't select all file and copy). See if that helps, or just don't have it plugged in while booting

I know an ISO is not bootcode which is why I said "iso installed on a drive" which would make it bootable.
They can be hidden all they want, I didn't check the stick with Windows but with Linux and if there's anything on there it'd tell me.

Now I think I might have fixed the issue? I went into the drive and just deleted the "System Volume Information" folder, for some reason that magically made the PC boot again? I'm kinda lost for an explanation on that one, but I wouldn't be surprised if Windows was the thing bricking it.

Jamarlie · April 17, 2022

So a quick update for the people that find this issue on Google in the future since they have trouble with the same thing:
The problem reappeared in different flavors and today I about finally had it with this stupid issue and diagnosed it in depth.

Basically the problem of my BIOS not even getting past the BIOS splash screen had nothing to do with either my motherboard OR my USBs. My MoBo flashed an LED on post that has the label "BOOT_DEVICE_LED". So it was having trouble with boot devices.

The issue correlated pretty well timing wise to me installing Manjaro and switching to GRUB to dual boot Windows. Around that time I also got the USBs which made it seem like it was their fault. It sometimes did post, sometimes it didn't, sometimes no USB was present and it wasn't posting, sometimes it was.

In the end the issue is entirely on GRUB or Linux. For some reason either of the two decided to add about 20 "bootable drives" called "UEFI OS" to my list of installed drives (Side note: Before I had Legacy windows and UEFI Manjaro which made GRUB unusable, I used to go into the BIOS to switch between the two and that's when I first saw the massive amounts of "ghost drives" that were supposedly connected - I had GRUB installed at that time however since I wasn't aware dual booting wasn't possible with Legacy and UEFI, they both need to be the same so I later converted Windows to UEFI).

I just kinda ignored these "ghost drives" since I thought it wasn't really doing much but something about this seems to really make my MoBo struggling. It's probably trying to add the USB to the connected devices but since there's like 20 of those already maybe the BIOS gets overloaded so it doesn't post or even let me into the BIOS settings then? No clue what the technical details are, just a hunch.
In the end I restarted the computer without the drive on which Manjaro and GRUB are installed. Then I shut it down after post, put the drive back in and when I post now I only have one "UEFI OS" entry left. I tried to plug all of the USB ports I have on my board and it worked just fine. I hope this permanently fixed my issue.

PCs can sometimes really be detective work and I have no fucking clue what about unplugging and replugging the drive did the trick for my BIOS but here is to this hopefully being resolved permanently.