Problem booting Aspire One 725-0884 from USB

Hello and much thanks in advance for anyone that can assist me with figuring this out

I recently purchased an Acer Aspire One 725-0884 netbook with Windows 8 loaded on it and so far I hate this thing... I'm trying to boot from a Linux Distro on a USB flash drive and it simply won't do it. I used unetbootin to create the bootable USB (Which I've successfully tested & verified is bootable on a different laptop).

I've bumped the USB port up in the BIOS boot sequence so it's the first device recognized in the boot sequence... the Acer netbook is quirky with how getting to the BIOS settings behaves... I can make it to the BIOS settings (F2) if the USB flash drive is NOT plugged in... Once the USB flash is connected it simply ignores pressing of F2 and refuses to enter the BIOS settings and continues to WIndows... If the USB flash drive is not plugged in it will enter the BIOS settings when I press F2

Once I figured this out I altered the boot order to have the USB 1st in the boot sequence... Unfortunately, when I plug the USB in and try to boot from it... It flashes something reeeeeally fast in the upper left hand corner (way to fast for me to see) and continues to boot to windows... I have attempted to set the boot sequence via the F12 key while it boots and that simply does not work and boots straight to Windows as well

I've attempted to get it to boot from various USB flash drives from different manufactures and sizes and every attempt fails.... While they all work on a second laptop I have.... This Acer simply REFUSES to boot from them (It does recognize them once the machine is booted and I can view the files in file manager)

I bought this a couple days ago and I am so frustrated that I'm on the verge or returning it and getting a different laptop... If anyone can offer me any help it would be GREATLY appreciated!!!! THANKS!

 

My recently purchased V5-171 (which looks like a netbook but has a CORE i3 cpu) came with Linux and I needed Windows. I discovered that the F12 boot sequence is disabled, by default, in BIOS. To me this is crazy but.......

Have you noticed this?

 

Windows has a "secure boot" strategy for W8 and newer laptops/desktops may have usb
booting disabled as part of the "secure boot" idea. There has been talk of this on Linux sites and how to disable "secure boot" so use google for answer.

 

I have the same model. You have to dissable the secure boot.