Can't Boot from USB Pen Drive - Help!

I got Windows 8.1, 64-bit. I'm trying to boot Free DOS from my USB pen drive. Rufus was what I used to install Free DOS on it. The pen drive is FAT32, I got the boot order to boot from external devices first, and its set to UEFI. But still, it doesnt boot from the pen drive. Instead it goes straight to the desktop. Should I switch the boot from UEFI to Legacy?

BTW, I need to boot to Free DOS as part of a process to unlock my BIOS.

Is there an error message? If the USB drive label is not listed in the boot order list then you likely need to turn on Legacy emulation to support USB devices during boot. If you get an error about a bootable device not being found you likely need to switch to CMS and disable secure boot.

I don't know how you make those changes if your BIOS is locked though.
It sounds like a catch 22.

Disable/ turn off Secure Boot and try again. Assuming you have access to the BIOS. What are you trying to unlock?

alphanumeric said:

Disable/ turn off Secure Boot and try again. Assuming you have access to the BIOS. What are you trying to unlock?

Click to expand...

I turned off secure boot and enabled lagacy boot. But when I boot from the USB stick I get this error:
"Error 208: Failed to disable write protection for the BIOS space"

To answer your question, I'm trying to unlock the BIOS using flash.bat provided by BIOS-mods.com.

Attached is a screenshot of the error. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Ok, can't help you there. It's booting from the thumb drive. You do know if you mess up the BIOS flash your likely going to brick your motherboard, right?

It sounds like the script or whatever it is, is supposed to disable the BIOS write protection and it failed. I would go to wherever you got the script and get support from the authors. As alphanumeric points out, any BIOS update can bork your system totally. There is always a risk.