Can't boot flash drive on GIGABYTE motherboard

Situation

When I try to boot from my flash drive, my GIGABYTE 970A-UD3 motherboard returns this:

Loading Operating System ...
Boot error

All other motherboards I've tried support booting from that flash drive (and a backup flash drive). The operating systems I tried on both flash drives were created with usb-creator-gtk (Ubuntu USB Startup Disk Creator).

I know that the motherboard understands that there is an operating system on the flash drives because when I erase them, it complains in an ALL CAPS RAGE that there isn't an operating system, which is correct.

How can I boot a flash drive that's bootable from other motherboards on this motherboard?

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Qualification

• This question is not a duplicate of this one because directly writing to the flash drive as an ISO 9660 (dd if=operating_system.iso of=/dev/sdb) still does not have the motherboard recognize the operating system.


• This question should be a duplicate of this one because I provide more information not provided by that poster.


• This forum thread has broken links and does not have a solution to my problem.


• Nobody knows what's going on in this forum thread.

Answer

Use Plop Boot Manager.

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Materials

2  computers
    1  computer with the problematic (GIGABYTE) motherboard
    1  computer for write operations to flash drives
2  USB FDDs
    1  (tiny capacity) flash drive for Plop Boot Manager
    1  (larger) flash drive for the anticipated boot disk
1  open USB slot

Setup

1. Download Plop Boot Manager. Get plpbt-x.x.x.zip (where x.x.x is the latest version number).


2. Extract the .zip file you downloaded.


3. In the folder resulting from the extraction, find plpbt.img.


4. 
   

   Unmount your tiny FDD.

   
   


5. 
   

   Write the file (Plop Boot Manager) to the beginning of your tiny FDD with this:

   
   

   Linux: sudo dd if=plpbt.img of=/dev/sdn

   
   

   Mac: sudo dd if=plpbt.img of=/dev/diskn

   
   

   (Assumes that you changed directories (cd plpbt-*) into the extracted folder. Replace the value of the of= parameter with the path of your particular flash drive. Be careful with this command by checking it for correctness!)

   
   

   Windows: Use Win32 Image Writer to write the .img file.

   
   


6. If you haven't already, write the bootable operating system to your other flash drive like normal.

Usage

1. 
   

   Plug the Plop Boot Manager FDD into the computer with the problematic (GIGABYTE) motherboard.

   
   

   

   
   


2. 
   

   Reboot or power on that computer. On GIGABYTE motherboards, press F12 at the BIOS splash.

   
   

   

   
   


3. 
   

   Select the Plop Boot Manager FDD for booting. On GIGABYTE motherboards, choose either USB-ZIP or USB-HDD. The flash drive is actually recognized as a floppy, not a regular flash drive.

   
   

   

   
   


4. Plop Boot Manager should now be running. There may be a starfield screensaver in the background.


5. Plug in the other FDD. (Exchange with the Plop Boot Manager FDD if you're out of slots.)


6. 
   

   Select the flash drive option from the Plop Boot Manager menu.

   
   

   

   
   

Now the bootable flash drive operating system should be starting up!

As a bonus, there are other uses for your Plop Boot Manager FDD now, and it can be your "key" to other possible booting issues you might encounter.