If you have Asus A7V400-MX (micro-ATX) motherboard, can you tell me if
you can boot from USB key drive? Ability to boot from USB key drive is
main requirement I'm looking for.

--
William Park <(E-Mail Removed)>
Open Geometry Consulting, Toronto, Canada
Linux solution for data processing.

Providing that key drive has a bootable image/file, then yes. You can
select boot from usb in the bios.

William Park wrote:
> If you have Asus A7V400-MX (micro-ATX) motherboard, can you tell me if
> you can boot from USB key drive? Ability to boot from USB key drive is
> main requirement I'm looking for.
>

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, William Park
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> If you have Asus A7V400-MX (micro-ATX) motherboard, can you tell me if
> you can boot from USB key drive? Ability to boot from USB key drive is
> main requirement I'm looking for.

The BIOS has options for USB-HDD and USB-FDD, and that is
supposed to allow booting from a USB device. But the
preparation of the device is one of the keys to success,
as you'll find many people cannot get it to work:

http://groups.google.ca/groups?threa...0gjh%404ax.com

Since device preparation and BIOS bugs are issues, you likely
won't know for sure until it is sitting on your desk.

http://groups.google.ca/groups?threa...rds.force9.net

And just a generic word of warning - Asus microATX boards have
the worst BIOS, in terms of allowing user configuration.
Now, the BIOS does have some options that seem to do what
you want, but if they don't work, I wouldn't be holding
my breath waiting for Asus to fix it. A full size board seems
to get better treatment. (Click the "more" links next to the
BIOS releases on the download page for the board, to see
the release notes for the BIOS. Almost all the BIOS releases
add support for new CPUs, with no mention of any fixes for
the main code.)

Paul

Well, I've never really had a problem with it. Just goofing around I
actually booted up msdos 6.22 from a usb key drive. I dunno, maybe good
luck?


Paul wrote:
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, William Park
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>>If you have Asus A7V400-MX (micro-ATX) motherboard, can you tell me if
>>you can boot from USB key drive? Ability to boot from USB key drive is
>>main requirement I'm looking for.
>
>
> The BIOS has options for USB-HDD and USB-FDD, and that is
> supposed to allow booting from a USB device. But the
> preparation of the device is one of the keys to success,
> as you'll find many people cannot get it to work:
>
> http://groups.google.ca/groups?threa...0gjh%404ax.com
>
> Since device preparation and BIOS bugs are issues, you likely
> won't know for sure until it is sitting on your desk.
>
> http://groups.google.ca/groups?threa...rds.force9.net
>
> And just a generic word of warning - Asus microATX boards have
> the worst BIOS, in terms of allowing user configuration.
> Now, the BIOS does have some options that seem to do what
> you want, but if they don't work, I wouldn't be holding
> my breath waiting for Asus to fix it. A full size board seems
> to get better treatment. (Click the "more" links next to the
> BIOS releases on the download page for the board, to see
> the release notes for the BIOS. Almost all the BIOS releases
> add support for new CPUs, with no mention of any fixes for
> the main code.)
>
> Paul

Browser Joe <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Well, I've never really had a problem with it. Just goofing around I
> actually booted up msdos 6.22 from a usb key drive. I dunno, maybe
> good luck?

If you can boot MSDOS from USB key drive, then I can boot Linux. Thanks
Joe. First-hand report is what I'm looking for. Most modern BIOS has
USB-* options, but some just lies (eg. Via EPIA).

Background:
I'm planning to setup Linux thin-client, made up of motherboard,
case, and USB key drive. Just turn it on, you have 100% solid state
machine. Initially, I looked at Via mini-ITX boards, but they are
simply pricing themselves out of the market.