grub does not respond to keyboard if usb drive is not present

[themusicgod1]

Weirdest thing. If I boot without a usb drive (drive in question: TAILS 2.0 beta https://tails.boum.org/news/test_2.0-rc1/index.en.html ), grub does not respond to keyboard input. If I boot with said USB drive, it works just fine.

lsusb entry for usb drive:
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 8644:8003

grub-pc:
  Installed: 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7
  Candidate: 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7

will try other USB drives as I get access to them.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: grub-pc 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-76.120-generic 3.13.11-ckt30
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-76-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.19
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Jan 25 15:50:18 2016
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-01-16 (8 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20130213)
SourcePackage: grub2
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2016-01-19 (5 days ago)

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

Tried an Arduino uno ripoff

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics HL-340 USB-Serial adapter

and it still froze.

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

another thumb drive and grub does *not* freeze/refuse input from keyboard:

Bus 003 Device 003: ID 058f:6387 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive

Disk /dev/sdb: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
23 heads, 22 sectors/track, 15477 cylinders, total 7831552 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x27f17f1a

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1176 7831551 3915188 b W95 FAT32

here's fdisk from the first one:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 487 cylinders, total 7831552 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7d391238

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 0 2216969 1108485 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS

(ie so thumb drives ranging around ~7831552 sectors using multiple filesystem types so far works fine, but just a usb hub or an arduino does not.)

example of hub that does not (ie that it does freeze).

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0451:1446 Texas Instruments, Inc. TUSB2040/2070 Hub

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

I'm afraid this is a bug in your system's bios. Grub uses it to read from the keyboard, and if that keyboard happens to be USB, then it is up to the bios to manage all of that.

Grub does have its own USB driver that you can force it to use instead of the bios. This might be a way for you to work around the bug.