HP 640 G1 laptop does not appear to 'see' USB memory stick as bootable device - it this correct ?

[WB5AGF]

Hello;

I bought a refurbished HP 640 G1 laptop yesterday that came with Windows 10 Pro already installed.

That works perfectly.

The problem I'm having is that the laptop does not appear to be capable of 'seeing' a USB memory

stick that has a LINUX MINT .ISO image file 'burned' onto it - my desire was to be able to have the

laptop boot directly into LINUX MINT (in 'live' mode, running directly off the memory stick).

I know that the USB memory stick is good and so is the LINUX MINT .ISO file because it works

perfectly when plugged into an HP z600 desktop workstation (the workstation comes-up in

LINUX MINT).

As best I can tell it appears that there is something about the HP 640 G1 configuration that

prevents it from being able to see the USB memory stick before there is a running operating

system (with the laptop up-and-running Windows 10 it was what 'burned' the .ISO image of

LINUX MINT onto the USB memory stick).

If someone can simply tell me that it won't work ... that the HP 640 G1 laptop

isn't capable of booting off a USB memory stick I'll quit trying to make-it-work.

(Thanks)

- Paul

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You should be able to boot from the USB flash drive by turning on the PC, immediately tap the ESC key at the beginning of the HP welcome screen to get the menu of options.

Select the F9 boot options menu and from that, select the USB flash drive and press the Enter key.

If that doesn't work, go into the BIOS, enable legacy mode and disable secure boot, save the settings, repeat the above steps to get to the boot options menu and this time select the legacy USB flash drive and press the enter key.

[WB5AGF]

Hello;

Tried all that - doesn't work.

If the people who wrote the BIOS options were very precise in their languge then it appears that the HP 640 G1 laptop doesn't know how to 'talk' to a USB memory stick until there is an OS running to handle tasks.

When 'USB' is mentioned in any of the BIOS screens there is no mention of memory stick ... the variables use the term 'USB drive' .... and there is even less direct wording when an attempt is made to explain what the bootable devices are that are supported in 'legacy' and 'UEFI' mode.

(I checked and the laptop has the latest BIOS ... dated August 2019)

- Paul

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Sorry that didn't work.

I have the 'cheaper' model HP 350 G1 with the Intel 4th gen core processor, and it boots just fine from a USB flash drive.

So unfortunately, I don't have any other suggestions for you to try.

[WB5AGF · Accepted solution]

Thursday Night (Thanksgiving)

28 Nov 2019

The problem is solved ..... it WAS the USB memory stick.

Even though the original memory stick had worked just fine to allow installing LINUX MINT on my HP z600 Workstation it failed utterly when trying to create a LINUX MINT installation on my 'new/used' HP 640G1 laptop PC.

In a search on-the-Web last night for problems getting USB memory 'sticks' to be read (and not just on HP 640 G1 laptops) I'd come across messages which indicated that there can be something 'wrong' with USB interfaces (one message 'thread' mentioned that the writer had seen when one USB port on a PC would not 'work' but another USB port, on the same PC, worked just fine). Other message 'threads' appeared to indicate that this sort of problem could be due to the type of USB memory stick- there was nothing 'concrete' ...nothing that said 'use THIS USB memory stick and it'll work fine' .... just the (rather vague)suggestion to 'try another' type of USB memory stick and see if it would work.

I went by a local Walmart last night and bought two 16 GB USB memory sticks (different brands) to see if (perhaps) one of them would be 'seen' by my HP 640 G1 laptop PC in its boot-up phase.

Using the 'RUFUS' .ISO file creator software I made what I hoped would be a 'good' copy of the LINUX MINT 'Cinnamon' .ISO file.

Without any great hope-of-success (since I'd spent the better part of two days trying all kinds of changes in the BIOS) I rebooted the laptop with the USB memory stick still plugged into one of the USB ports.

It 'worked' ....the new USB memory stick 'showed-up' as a selectable option to boot from and the laptop came up running LINUX MINT (in 'live' mode) without any problems. I then selected the 'install' feature and the 'live' (running) version of LINUX MINT proceeded to flawlessly 'see' the portion of the laptop's SSD drive that wasn't formatted (I'd previously used the 'shrink' feature in Windows 10 to reduce the size of the Windows partition on the SSD drive and, by doing so, that created a 50 GB portion on the SSD that wasn't formatted). The LINUX MINT installation software 'looks for' unformatted areas on a drive to format/install LINUX MINT on. Along with formatting/installing LINUX on the SSD the installation process also installed the LINUX 'GRUB' selectable OS feature on the SSD so that the desired OS (Windows 10 or LINUX MINT) can be selected when the laptop is started-up or after 're-boot' was initiated while one of the operating systems was running.

(I'm writing this while running my HP 640 G1 laptop PC running LINUX MINT.)

So .... 'that' was 'it' ....  going to a different USB memory stick enabled the laptop PC to 'see' it and boot LINUX.

For me .... the USB memory stick that 'worked' was a SanDisk 'Cruzer Glide' 16GB with a USB 2.0 interface.

- Paul