T630 Imaging woes

[karchambault]

Once again, I am faced with the problem of an inconsistent experience.

We started buying thes T630 devices after having used the T520.

Imaging was a breeze with the 520. Every one of them worked as expected!!

Not so much with the T630. Sometimes it works as expected, but mostly I just have to shake my head at the frustrating inconsistencies.

My image is on a 16G USB

On SEVERAL (not every oneof them) of these devices, Booting does not recognize the USB stick. It just boots right into the "User" desktop.

In the BIOS I can see The USB device.

*UEFI Boot Sources

       Windows Boot Manager

       USB Floppy/CD

       USB Hard Drive

*Legacy Boot Surces

     USB Floppy/CD

     Hard Drive

          KingstonDataTraveller 3.0PMAP

          PO: SANdISK SD9SN8W-128G-1006

     Network Controller

KingstonDataTraveller USB stick cannot be moved up...

In the secure boot configuration, legacy boot is ENABLED.

In USB Security, all USB Ports are ENABLED

So, I tried F11from boot. It doesn't give me a temporary boot device option as I was told IT WOULD, by an HP assister.

F12 is just as useless.

So, basically, it's a 50/50 as to whether imaging works on these T630 devices - for me anyway. I am just getting fed up.

[nivalcckw]

Try F9 instead of F11

[karchambault]

F9 works but, KingstonDataTraveller USB is not on the list of devices to boot from

When this process works correctly, the Same USB stick will boot and prompt me to decide if I really want to image the device.

Otherwise, I am stuck eternally booting into "User" - then I resort to the manual configuration that ThinUpdate was supposed to free me from doing.

[karchambault]

Somebody else can try this but my testing shows the following.;

If I DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with the T630 but power on with the USB image in place, it works as expected. 100%

If I power on and DO ANYTHING with the unit before trying the USB image, it FAILS EVERY TIME.

Example; went into BIOS to set Power On After Poere Loss. - unable to boot from usb

Example; powered on the unit and allowed it to boot to "User" desktop - unable to boot from USB

What this tells me is that if I need to change the image, I will have to manually reconfigure levery single one, because I won't be able to make Thinupdate work.

[karchambault]

Update;

Further testing is interesting.

From the desktop of "User" on the offending T630, I updated  HP ThinUpdate to V2.50.

Now, I can select the DataTraveller as a boot device - ODD - It STILL does not boot automatically to USB.

And, I get to the Imaging Tool prompt. Only to be disappointed that my USB stick "Must Boot in UEFI Mode" and will not process the image.

This seems to be how it goes for me.

[nivalcckw]

This implies the USB stick is boot in legacy bios mode.

Usually would reset the bios to factory default and should be able to see USB boot available in boot UEFI and legacy mode

[karchambault · Accepted solution]

I can give that a try.

I read somewhere that to do UEFI mode, you had to Disable Secure Boot.

What I have found in 2 of the units that would not boot to USB, is that Secure Boot was disabled and Legacy Support was enabled. The oposite of what I expected from what I read...

Disabling Legacy and Enabling Secure made it work. However, F9 is still required to assign the temporary boot device.

So, basically - If I have never turned on a unit, the USB image will boot and load properly.

                          - If I have done anything with the unit powered on for any reason, this option disappears and requires intervention with settings and an insulting F9 option.

[nivalcckw]

By any chance a bios update fix the issue? 1.06 onwards is more mature it seems

The USB image should be Fat32 formated, UEFI boot does not support NTFS

PS. T630 Bios update reset the bios settings into factory default, and you need to "save the settings as default" in bios for once to get rid of the error prompt "default bios settings loaded"