Dropped 6 hours on a USB boot drive that shoulda taken 20 minutes

Had a client's old Dell OptiPlex that wouldn't boot past POST. Figured it was a corrupted Windows install, easy fix. Spent 2 hours trying every USB port with a bootable drive I made in Rufus. Nothing. Tried a different thumb drive, different ISO, still nothing. Finally noticed the BIOS was set to UEFI but the drive was MBR. Rebuilt the whole thing as GPT and it fired right up. That dumb mismatch cost me most of a Saturday afternoon. Anyone else ever chase a simple issue that turned into a whole day project because of one tiny setting?

3 comments

3 Comments

emerycarr1mo ago

Spent 2 hours trying every USB port" - Yeah I'd be switching ports too like @calebw50 probably just needed a coffee break first though.

ericfox2mo agoProlific Poster

Gotta love when you realize you spent more time staring at ports than actually thinking about the BIOS... been there with a similar UEFI/MBR thing before. Felt like a real genius when I finally spotted it.

calebw502mo ago

@ericfox yep classic mistake. I once spent an hour staring at a black screen before realizing I'd plugged the monitor into the motherboard instead of the GPU. Felt like a total clown.