Couldn't boot Navigatrix from a flash drive on a ASUS A54H and have spent the last 2 hours trying to find info to help.
The bios has the ability to add boot devices but wants boot options and a boot path. I tried to find out what was needed here but in the end, I found that you press "Esc" at startup and you get the option to boot the flash drive.

It would still be handy to have the correct options but mostly I'm posting just to save others some time.

I'm a bit confused. My everyday machine is an ASUS A54H. I access the BIOS via <F2>.

Under Main...7 line down I can enable/disable the <F12> Boot Menu that give me the option to change the boot order on the fly.

Under Boot there is the selection of boot order. If USB HDD is moved to the fisrt position it will boot from a USB whenever there is a bootable USB inserted...unless you change the order with <F12>.

After the machine is set up; the BIOS saved; the stick inserted; and the machine boots....it's all over but the waiting.

The machine boots from the stick with no further intervention...everytime.**

**except when the system has been corrupted in either 1) download and/or creation; 2) untimely removal from the machine or 3) a user's fatal alteration of system files.

The <esc> method of booting is for when the system has been corrupted and you seek to repair it.

If the machine does not auto-magically boot. It need to be repaired.

If you see the Blue splash screen you hit <esc>. Keep hitting <esc> until the screen stays black.

In the the upper left corner is the word boot:

...to which you enter:

fix

...followed by an <enter>.

This fixes the system and makes it "new". If this doesn't fix the system the source of the problem might be the creation of the LiveCD installation or a corrupted ISO file in the download process...check the MD5 Checksum.

When your machine asked for a path...what did you say?

I'm even more confused. I expected to see everything you have just described but it wasn't there. I've got 7 screenshots that have been resized here (largest one is 82Kb). http://stam.com.au/ASUS_BIOS.html These will show you better than what I can describe.

It appears we have very different BIOS's on the same make and model laptop. I don't see F12 anywhere in my bios.

The "Esc" method here is very much an ASUS thing, at least on my wife's laptop, as you can see from the last image.
It has to be pressed before the boot loader starts. From what you describe, the "Esc" method is a Navigatrix thing.

Thanks
Max

UEFI rears it's head once again....and the <esc> thing has two distinct functions in this case. Fot you the escape key is to get your booting software on your computer to accept something different...namely the USB. In the "traditional boot" ( I feel like an ol' cogger when I say that) the escape key interrupts the bootloader on the USB to accept manual input (fix, to fix the system; es, for Spanish language; old, for older graphics cards...etc.). Those option should still work for you...not that you will use them.

Our computers are the same model, but different makes.

Even the manual available online (http://www.manualowl.com/m/Asus/A54H/Manual/328790?page=76 ) is different than both of our screens.

I bought my (more precisely, the First Mate's) machine almost 3 years ago (Aug. 2010). Your CPU is faster and you are carrying twice my maximum RAM. It also looks like you have UEFI...and therein lies the trouble.

I did some reading and it aapears that you are "secure boot" mode A comment about the Aptio Setup Utility on the net was
There were long threads in Linux Mint and OpenSuseforums about this very problem with Aptio Setup Utility.

It looks like switching to Legacy BIOS would save you 3-4 keystrokes. I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

But, learning about this "secure" feature will save others a lot of time. Thanks for the education and the screenshots.