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I had just made a new bootable thumb drive. I did a normal reboot of Windows 7, hit F12 and the list now contains only the hard drive and the DVD drive.

Any idea how to fix this list?

I checked setup options and found nothing to indicate this problem.

RayInLV
2011-12-06 20:58:00
Later I remember something happened to me just like this when I had left a blank unformatted DVD loaded.   
RayInLV
2011-12-05 15:09:00
Good Morning.   Problem solved.  I had not noticed my Cell phone plugged into the USB cable sitting hidden among my wires...Apparently that blocked all USB devices from being added when list is populated.  Once unplugged, things work again...This was a biggie because the switch that opens/closes the DVD no longer works.   I use the Eject on Explore.   I better find out why that is not working too.  Not being able to boot a Thumb Drive would have left me with no recovery options...
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Stivinn Aura
2011-12-05 09:12:00
Hi Ray! Sometimes, the BIOS reads flash drives as external hard disks. Try looking for your flash drive under Hard Disks in the BIOS. If it is listed, set it as the primary hard disk and set the 1st-boot device as Hard Disk.Even if that doesn't solve your problem and you really need to boot off from a flash drive, give Plop Boot Manager a try. It is a life saver for computers that have USB ports, but cannot boot from USB devices.Plop Website: www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
2011-12-05 08:01:00
have you checked BIOS
FIDELIS
2011-12-05 08:01:00
Hello, if your flash drive is not recognized as boot up option, maybe your BIOS is not compatible with booting up from usb.  If it was compatible with booting up with flashdrive/usb, it would at least show you the option.  Even if the contents from the usb were corrupted/unreadable. You could try the following:http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16822/boot-from-a-usb-drive-even-if-your-bios-wont-let-you/