ThinkPad L14 Gen3 Intel USB Boot UEFI Issue

[astounded]

Hi all,

I just got my first ThinkPad (L14 Gen3 Intel 21C1 - Windows 10) and need to be able to boot different OS's from a USB stick such as direct to DOS or Linux. I just cant get it to work. Everything appears to be an issue with something called UEFI. Does anyone know how I can get around this either by disabling it all together or with any other work around. Its really annoying.

I tried to make the boot order look for the USB drive first (didn't work)
I tried disabling "Secure Boot" but then I get the message about UEFI key.

Thanks!

[dr_st]

I don't know about the Secure Boot stuff (whether Lenovo locked something related to it in newer BIOSes - previously disabling it was trivial).

To boot from USB in a UEFI environment, the USB must be partitioned and formatted in UEFI/GPT mode. Modern utilities will do it. Windows and Linux can boot this way, but DOS cannot be booted directly in UEFI mode.

[astounded]

Thanks this is brilliant info, I will look around to find a utility that can format/image the USB drive in UEFI. Meanwhile if anyone can suggest a suitable util I would very much appreciate a link.

Cheers!

[axur-delmeria]

If you're creating a Linux installer USB on Windows, you can use Rufus.

[astounded]

If you're creating a Linux installer USB on Windows, you can use Rufus.

I am about to sit down and re look into this now. I previously used Rufus to make a bootable Linux USB stick but it still would not boot. The issue being that first the ThinkPad needs to be able to boot from the drive, to do this it needs to get around the UEFI issue. Can Rufus create a UEFI bootable usb stick?

[dr_st]

Can Rufus create a UEFI bootable usb stick?

Yes, if it is a recent enough version. I always suggest downloading the newest one from their website.

[axur-delmeria]

When using Rufus to make Linux installer USB disks, there's a setting like "DD image mode" that needs to be set/selected. I've done this on Debian installer ISOs.