X220 booting from USB

[chaose]

So the X220 is acting up about booting from the USB. yesterday it would boot from 1 of my bootable USB's containing Archlinux created with the Universal USB Installer, but wouldn't boot one that contained Xubuntu. Today it refuses to boot either one, booting straight into windows. I went into bios and made sure USB HDD is at priority 1, USB CD at priority 2, and USB FDD at priority 3, with the primary HDD somewhere further down the list. Despite this it still boots into windows straight away. This is extremely weird; none of my other laptops had issues.
This is only an issue with bootable USBs. I tried 3 different USB drives to no avail.
I also tried a USB DVD drive to boot from a CD and that worked fine, so I don't know why it's not booting from the USBs.
Anyone know what's going on or have suggestions?

[invisible]

You may want to check this out. Though you are booting from a USB thumb drive, the latest BIOS for the X220 might correct the issue.

Lenovo Support - BIOS Update Utility for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad X220, X220i, X220 Tablet, X220i Tablet

Fix for CD boot failure depending on a content of a bootable CD.

Though you are booting from a thumb drive, it's still basically a bootable CD transferred to a USB drive. If you don't have BIOS v 1.11 I'd give it a try.

[chaose]

My x220 came with 1.11 so I'm pretty sure it's not a BIOS issue. It's just acting extremely random, withit sometimes working, sometimes not working.
From time to time on boot (when the diagnostic/thinkpad logo would display), key entries such as F1 or F12 to go to boot list are not accepted.

F12 doesn't seem to work that well either. While it does bring up a boot list, selecting anything other than the windows installation would cause the screen to go blank for a few seconds before reloading the boot list. For example, if I select my bootable USB drive with xubuntu on it, the x220 would go blank for a few seconds before reloading into the boot list. It's not a USB issue because I tested each drive with an older laptop and it was able to boot from each drive just fine.
I'm thinking maybe it's a UEFI/Legacy issue? Perhaps I should disable UEFI and boot legacy only?

[chaose]

update: still not working.
not a UEFI/legacy issue. Really have no idea why it's not booting from the USB now when it sometimes did before.
Guesses:
1. Intel boot agent
2. PXE

[kuloshius]

I have had the same problem with my desktop last night. I don't know the exact reason, but taking USB drive out and putting it back in solved the problem for me.

[bogatyr]

You're not plugging into a USB 3.0 port, right?

[invisible]

You're not plugging into a USB 3.0 port, right?

You do realize that USB 3.0 is backwards compatible don't you?

[dtp7]

You do realize that USB 3.0 is backwards compatible don't you?

I don't think the BIOS can see the USB3 port. It only has drivers for the USB2 ports.

Also, chaose, I'm having similar issues booting from a USB dvd drive. It works fine if i have UEFI Only selected in BIOS; with either Both or Legacy selected, however, it will just hang on a black screen when it tries to boot from the disc (also running 1.11). Not sure if it's the same issue or not, but I'd definitely be interested to hear if you find a solution.

[bogatyr]

You do realize that USB 3.0 is backwards compatible don't you?

They don't boot (at least not currently on Thinkpads) and they don't work (even with USB 2.0 devices) without drivers.

[invisible]

They would still boot as a USB 2.0 device. I am almost positive of that (but I have no proof either way).