Cannot boot from Yumi multiboot USB stick

Question

I've just created a multiboot USB stick using Yumi. I tried to start my notebook (Asus K70IO) using it, but all I see is just a black screen with blinking underscore even after waiting for minutes. If during this time I remove the USB stick I get the message: "Operating system load error".

How do I properly load my Yumi USB stick and use it? I've tried formatting it using Yumi's checkbox to format the stick in FAT32 too, but it didn't help.

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Now I tried to use Sardu 2.0.5 and met same problem: black screen and blinkin underscore, if I remove stick I see "Operating system load error" and my OS starts to boot.

At the same time if I create bootable USB stick from ISO using UltraISO it boots smoothly.

Solution 1

So the problem is solved. Seems that something was wrong with 2 USB sticks(Kingston DT 100 G2 and Spaceloop XL), because when I made bootable USB with third stick - it started without any problems. But still, I can't understand why these sticks weren't working.

Solution 2

I know its a couple years late, but here goes....

It can be a factor of factory formatting. Many USB sticks are formatted USB-FDD (Floppy disk) when what you really need is USB-HDD. Windows inherently formats USB drives as FDD for which it will not write to MBR. But with a specific command line called DISKPART you can wipe the disk and set it up as a USB-HDD with an appropriate MBR. Here are some pretty simple steps, take caution though, one small misstep could send to "no-reboot land":

1. Run Comand Prompt as Admin and use the following commands:
2. DISKPART
3. LIST DISK - find the disk number of the usb drive
4. SELECT DISK # - # being your usb drive ( WARNING MAKE SURE YOU ARE SELECTING THE CORRECT DRIVE OTHERWISE THIS COULD BE DISASTROUS )
5. CLEAN
6. ACTIVE - Make the drive active
7. FORMAT FS=FAT32 - fat16/32 are the best option for syslinux
8. ASSIGN
9. EXIT

This should get you ready to go unless the USB drive is truly the culprit. This just fixed the exact SAME problem I was having with YUMI.

Comments

[Admin]

One thing I noticed, the drive seems to need to be formatted to FAT32, I had mine as exFAT and it wouldn't make it bootable. Just check the "Format drive" and that might fix it.

[Arjan]

Someone wrote in a (now deleted) "answer" that for them Clean was not needed, and that the order should be Format, Assign, Active or Format, Active, Assign. (I've no idea if that is true.)

[Gui Imamura]

So I thought YUMI would make UEFI disks, not disks with MBR partitions. Is there a way to make it write UEFI disks?

[Gui Imamura]

See the other answer

[Jake Stevens-Haas]

I know this is a few years later, but I want to include all the details of my same problem. CLEAN succeeds, but ACTIVE returns "There is no partition selected". CREATE PARTITION has options EFI, EXTENDED, LOGICAL, MSR, and PRIMARY. I ran CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY and then ACTIVE "marked the current partition as active." FORMAT fails and then LIST DISK no longer sees the disk.

[Ninbura]

I had the same problem Jake Stevens-Haas, I first had to delete all partitions using Disk Management, then I did DISKPART > SELECT DISK X > CLEAN > CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY > SELECT PARTITION 1 > ACTIVE > FORMAT FS=FAT32 and it worked. Afterwards I was finally able to load multiple things via YUMI and it booted everything perfectly.